在日本統治時期，咖啡的消費只是明治時期引入西方象徵出現於臺灣殖民地的一景。國民黨接手後，一方面延續這項文化遺緒，同時也加入了西方啟發之新型咖啡館，與先前的日本模式一起發展。對於當時絕大多數的臺灣人來說，這兩種類型的咖啡館之價格是令人望而卻步的。一九八○年代是臺灣咖啡文化發展的第三個時期，當日本及美國企業化經營的咖啡餐飲連鎖店開始服務臺灣逐漸興起的中產階級之時，此亦象徵著臺灣更廣泛的性別和社會階級進入了咖啡文化。

Coffee consumption in Taiwan began during the period of Japanese rule, and was but one part of the Meiji incorporation of Western iconographies into its colonial landscape in Taiwan. The early KMT era took over this legacy while providing a new Western inspired model of the coffee shop that would evolve side by side with earlier Japanese precedents. Both styles of coffee shop were prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of Taiwanese. The 1980s marked a third stage in Taiwan's coffee culture signified by broadening class and gender access to coffee shop culture, as Japanese and American corporate food and coffee chains began serving Taiwan's new middle class.