SoCal brews up a storm on US best coffee cities list — beating Seattle and SF

Bean to Long Beach, lately?

The SoCal city’s surging coffee culture has catapulted the coastal burg past Los Angeles — and caffeine-loving Seattle, and San Francisco, too — to number four in a new national ranking of the best US cities for those who love a cup of joe.

The java jolting news comes via the researchers at WalletHub, who used 12 key indicators of “coffee lover-friendliness” to compile their list.

Those indicators included shops per capita, the average retail price of coffee purchased for home use, and the share of the population that has some kind of coffee making apparatus in their kitchen.

Other measures included the cost of a cappuccino — and, in a very Southern California-friendly metric, the number of donut shops per capita in a city.

Long Beach has seen an explosion of cafe openings in recent years, with chic spots like Common Room Roasters, Rose Park Roasters and Recreational Coffee all popular with locals and visitors.

Caffeinated California also topped the sprawling survey in other, less surprising ways.

On a list of the average amount of money spent on coffee per household, Fremont, San Francisco and San Jose in the pricey Bay Area owned the top three slots, while Seattle and Irvine followed.

And given punishing Southern California commute times and the early starts that often accompany those grueling journeys, Santa Ana and San Bernardino coming in at number one and number two on a ranking of the most adult coffee drinkers per capita seems highly likely.

Back on the overall list, the usual West Coast suspects came in not far behind Long Beach.

Seattle sat at No. 5, while San Francisco grabbed the No. 7 spot. Los Angeles was all the way down at No. 14 — behind a slew of cities like Atlanta (No. 13) and Tampa (No. 6).

Florida fared well on the list — Orlando was named the No. 1 city in the country, while Miami took the bronze(d) at No. 3.

Like most everything else, Americans are paying more and more for their daily habit, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said.

“Coffee has become a staple of American culture, helping people stay energized for the workday and bond with friends or dates. But the costs of having one or more cups of Joe daily can add up, especially as prices inflate,” Lupo said.

“In the cities that are craziest about coffee, the average household may spend as much as $327 per year on the beverage,” he continued.

For many Southern Californians, that number will seem low — sounding more like the weekly budget for Starbucks runs in eye-wateringly expensive Los Angeles.

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