A sociological study of the ritual of coffee consumption among Iranian youth: From entering a new field to connoisseurship consumption

Abstract

This study examines coffee consumption among young people in Tehran as a multilayered sociocultural practice embedded in processes of cultural distinction, identity formation, and urban sociability. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, subcultural capital, serious leisure, and ritual theory, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with young Tehranis aged 18–30 and analyzed using thematic analysis. Four interconnected themes emerged: entering a new cultural field by breaking with the intergenerational tea-drinking habitus; ritualizing coffee consumption through structured spatial and temporal practices; pursuing serious leisure through progressive connoisseurship; and cultivating reflexive taste as a mode of cultural self-construction. Gender operates as a cross-cutting dimension throughout, shaping how women and men enter coffee culture, develop expertise, claim public space, and enact distinction. The findings demonstrate that, in Tehran’s specific social and historical context, coffee functions not merely as a beverage but as a medium through which young urbanites negotiate generational rupture, cosmopolitan aspiration, and a distinctively contemporary sense of self within the tensions of a transitional society.