Indonesia has quietly achieved a global milestone that few would have expected. According to a global database of Points of Interest recorded in OpenStreetMap, Indonesia now ranks first worldwide for the number of cafés and coffee shops.
As of November 2025, Indonesia is home to 461,991 coffee-related locations, a figure shared by the Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia.
The number places Indonesia ahead of countries long associated with strong café cultures, marking a striking shift in the global coffee landscape.
More Than Coffee: The Culture of “Nongkrong”
The sheer scale of Indonesia’s coffee scene cannot be explained by caffeine consumption alone. At its core lies a deeply rooted social habit known locally as nongkrong.
In Indonesia, coffee shops function as what sociologists describe as a “third place” a space that sits between home and the workplace. Cafés double as offices for freelancers embracing work-from-café routines, informal meeting rooms for small businesses, and social hubs for everything from community discussions to political debates.
This multifunctional role helps explain why coffee shops are not concentrated only in city centers or malls, but embedded in neighborhoods, campuses, and even residential alleys.
From Alleyway Stalls to Specialty Cafés
The figure of more than 460,000 locations reflects a remarkably diverse ecosystem. Indonesia’s coffee scene spans everything from small grab-and-go kiosks operating out of modest shopfronts to high-end specialty cafés showcasing single-origin beans.
Modernized warung kopi sit alongside minimalist specialty shops that highlight beans from Gayo, Toraja, Kintamani, and Flores. At the same time, many coffee businesses remain deliberately accessible, offering affordable prices while still providing WiFi and comfortable seating.
This wide spectrum demonstrates how coffee in Indonesia has become increasingly democratic. It is no longer a luxury product confined to certain income groups, but a daily ritual shared across social and economic boundaries.
Digital Platforms Fuel the Explosion
Indonesia’s advanced food delivery and digital mapping ecosystem has played a significant role in this growth. Many coffee businesses operate on a small scale, sometimes from home-based kitchens or garages, relying heavily on delivery platforms rather than physical foot traffic.
These digitally native businesses are still recorded as Points of Interest, contributing to the rapid expansion reflected in mapping databases. In effect, digital platforms have lowered the barrier to entry for aspiring coffee entrepreneurs, allowing thousands of small operators to emerge and sustain themselves through online demand.
This combination of physical presence and digital visibility has reshaped how coffee businesses are counted and how they survive.
Drinking What the Country Produces
Indonesia’s position as the world’s fourth-largest coffee producer adds another layer to the story. Increasingly, Indonesians are choosing to consume coffee grown within their own archipelago, rather than seeing premium beans exported while domestic markets rely on imports.
Coffee shops have become the main stage for celebrating local beans, introducing consumers to regional flavors and brewing methods. This has encouraged younger generations to enter the coffee industry across the value chain, from farming and roasting to barista training and café ownership.
The result is an industry that connects natural resources with urban culture, blending agriculture, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle into a single ecosystem.
Why This Matters Beyond Indonesia
Indonesia’s coffee shop boom challenges conventional assumptions about where global café culture resides. It shows that Southeast Asia is not merely a consumer of trends from elsewhere, but a space where new models of social interaction and small-scale entrepreneurship can flourish.
For the region, Indonesia’s experience offers insight into how culture, technology, and local production can combine to create industries of unexpected scale. Coffee, in this context, is no longer just a beverage. It is infrastructure for social life.
