This isn’t new news.  It was announced in 2015, that United had partnered with Illy to provide coffee for it’s operations (both lounges and in flight).  What is news here is the quantity of coffee that United serves.

Look at those numbers.  That equates to 50 TONS of coffee a month.  This isn’t Starbucks (which incidentally WAS served on United until the Continental merger).  This is an airline, and they consume 50 TONS of coffee a month.   This is so much coffee that Illy has built a special line at their plant in Trieste just to service the United contract.