When the popular American sitcom Friends rose to fame in the UK in the late 90’s, the notion of a coffee shop being a centre point for social groups, gatherings, events and relaxing spaces sowed its first seed. Add to this, another American influence – Starbucks. In 1998, it had entered the UK market with 60 outlets. By 2005 it had opened 455 stores.

Correspondingly, The total tea market in 2005 recorded a drop of 12% –  from £707m in 1999 to £623m in 2004. Further, in 1997 there were just 778 branded coffee outlets in the UK, by 2005 that number had jumped to 2,428. Now, 80% of adults in the UK drink coffee every week.

Professor Leigh Sparks of the Institute of Retail Studies at Stirling University sums up this transformation effectively: “We’ve gone from a nation of tea-drinkers to a nation of coffee-drinkers in a decade.”

If we apply this to society, we can see that the little changes themselves become the habits that orchestrate the change. Every now and then soon becomes all the time, and because of these little stages, that happen fragment by fragment, it seems to be nothing dramatic. But with just the two facts, side by side without the year on year growths, that change is still a confounding one. The same as when a caterpillar emerges from its cocoon, it is unrecognisable as the creature it once was.

It is only by studying and seeing these little fragments of change that we can understand, or take part in, the bigger story. Any change, no matter how small, whether it is the flap of a butterfly’s wings, or the phrasing of a sentence, plays an active role in the big pictures that affect us all. In effect, transformation is only created by the small, tiny, silent changes occurring within it.  

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