The Coffee Industry is a Form of People's Business to Help People in the Middle Class

The world is in turmoil. There are wars everywhere, and crises in almost every corner of the globe. Oil prices are soaring, and plastic prices are sure to follow. The cost of living keeps rising. That's not because we need more things, but because everything costs more. The Rupiah alone has broken Rp17,000 per US Dollar as of this writing. And the result? Unemployment everywhere. According to the latest BPS (Statistics Indonesia) data for 2026:

Open unemployment in 2026 reached 7.22 million people as of May 2026

So what does all of this have to do with the small world of coffee?

Around 67% of those unemployed are young people, mostly Gen Z

So what makes everything look fine?

Nothing is really fine right now. Everything is fragile, illusory, and easily shaken by the turbulence around us. But that doesn't mean everything stops and we simply give up. At the very least, we can get through it little by little, step by step, with coffee and its industry by our side. It might sound strange: why, in times like these, would coffee be one of our saviors through the hard days? What about tea? Or matcha? Well, those are sold in coffee shops too, so the coffee industry still plays its part here.

Coffee may be one of the longest-lasting trends, and it keeps growing, compared with other trends that come and go through each generation of young people. Even people who aren't so young anymore are still carried along by the coffee wave. It ranges from simple hangout culture, to a drink between tasks (sometimes coffee, sometimes matcha), to an almost addictive habit of people who can't function without coffee (maybe that's an exaggeration, but those people do exist). Even today's healthy-living trend includes coffee as a drink of choice, alongside running, cycling, the gym, and so on.

According to a global Point of Interest (POI) database from OpenStreetMap, recorded in November 2025:

Indonesia is the country with the most coffee shops in the world, with 461,991 locations

That number beats countries with far larger populations, like China and the United States. Interesting, right? Granted, this data is still debatable because it's based on OpenStreetMap, where classification is much harder. Telling a modern coffee shop apart from a traditional kedai (small coffee stall) is a whole different scope. Even so, it's clearly a huge number.

So why is the coffee industry one way that people help people, especially the middle class?

Coffee stalls, coffee shops, and the like in Indonesia are fascinating because they're started by all kinds of people. Assuming there really are 462,000 coffee shops in Indonesia, the capital comes from every direction. Starting a coffee business, especially a coffee shop, isn't exactly cheap. In my mind, you need a budget of at least Rp20 million to open a small stall, and remember, that's a small stall. For trendy coffee shops, the capital can be almost limitless, and nobody knows when it will ever pay back. You can build a coffee shop for Rp1 billion, Rp2 billion, or even Rp20 billion, depending on the location, equipment, and so on. Interesting, isn't it? For a smaller example, an electric coffee cart alone now costs around Rp15–20 million in the city where I live.

Of course, these business owners don't come from the lower class. They come from the middle to upper classes, people who want to place their bets on the coffee industry, winning customers' hearts with their own menus, or even cleaning money that was previously dirty. "Oops."

Whatever the reason, business is still business. Wherever the money comes from, its final form is a drink or food that customers receive when they buy it. An exchange of value still happens. Big or small, that doesn't reduce its essence as a coffee shop. Everyone's salary still gets paid, no matter how small or large. There will always be an exchange of value: money into goods, sweat into money.

Why is there always this assumption that coffee shops are money-laundering businesses? It's as simple as reading the news about a café in Cipete that had a safe holding around Rp60 billion. How could a café have a safe worth Rp60 billion? We'll try to think positively: maybe it's accumulated profit piled up over the years. But that positive thinking often evaporates, replaced by suspicion, especially with a suspect who has close ties to people in power now under police investigation.

All that aside, business is still business. What's even more interesting is that coffee shop workers don't only come from the lower to middle classes. People from the upper-middle class are also willing to work as baristas. It's not unusual for a barista to drive to work, and sometimes the worker's car is nicer and more expensive than the owner's. It's not common, and their motivations differ. Sometimes people from the upper class work there to seem more down-to-earth, to look cool, or to gain experience before opening a place of their own. And in the end, you know there will soon be one more new coffee shop once that upper-class person feels experienced enough. One more coffee shop, and so on, until the end of the world, hehe.

But, but, but, there's nothing wrong with that as long as this process of wealth distribution keeps going. To me, it's perfectly fine if someone feels called to start a business. Everyone has the right to use their money to build a business. But don't forget that a business also has obligations: to survive, to pay workers, raw materials, annual rent, electricity, cleaning services, water, plastic cups, taxes (don't forget PB1, the regional restaurant tax), and much more. Maybe this is the wealth-distribution process that simply has to happen. Workers earn wages; if they're still in school, they can pay their tuition and have fun without burdening their parents. Raw-material suppliers keep their cash flow moving so they can pay their own workers, who can then support their families. Building and shophouse owners earn passive income from their property and can eventually save. The business contributes to the region by paying PB1 restaurant tax. Some of that money gets corrupted, while the rest is distributed as regional revenue. Cleaners, daily laborers, and freelancers also get work and payment, so they can keep making a living.

Interesting, right? A growing middle class, or even a middle class that's shrinking, not because people are moving up but because they're sliding down into the lower class. That's a complex problem to untangle piece by piece. The many newly unemployed are a real problem for this country. The large number of daily freelance workers makes things even messier, because they're vulnerable to sudden storms, whether it's predatory online loans, online gambling, or all the other traps out there.

Going deeper, with all these problems, the coffee industry shows up in every gap. It provides places for freelancers to work, places to release stress, places to earn new income, or just a place to sit and stare blankly, wondering what to do tomorrow after being laid off.

Coffee, as a fruit, a bean, a drink, or a space, never stops offering solutions. It's true that we need a long-term solution, something that lasts longer than sipping coffee to temporarily ease a tangled mind. It's true that wages around the world are still far from equal. It's also true that customers aren't used to today's fairly high coffee prices, since green bean prices haven't come down since last year. Every business in this industry needs to pay close attention to how they respond to that. But at least coffee is a small part of the solution, and that's better than nothing. And if the money-laundering practices are real and hard to stop, then keep on washing, and distribute some of that wealth so the rest of us can enjoy the results of the wash.

This opinion wasn't written by a coffee expert, a barista expert, or a coffee-business expert, so it's natural if something is missing or wrong. If something's missing, just add it. If something's wrong, just correct it. As simple as that. This opinion was written by someone who has spent more than 10 years in this industry and still relies on it to this day. That's me.

Regards,
Dio Rizkyandita