The third wave coffee movement is a movement led by both consumers and manufacturers to consume, enjoy, and appreciate high-quality coffee. This movement considers coffee an artisanal food, like wine, whose consumption experience can be enhanced with greater education, connoisseurship, and sensory exploration beyond just a cup of coffee. While all coffee comes through a similar value stream, third wave coffee seeks to highlight the unique characteristics that result from the diversity of coffee bean cultivars, growing and cultivation methods, processing methods, roasting methods, and the variables in beverage preparation. Distinct from the first two waves, the third wave of coffee disrupts the more commodity-focused trade of coffee and prioritizes taste quality, unique flavors, and equitable relationships over low prices and standardizations in flavor.
History
The term "third wave coffee" is most widely attributed to coffee professional Trish Rothgeb due to a 2003 article for the Roasters Guild newsletter titled "Norway and Coffee," with the first mainstream media mention in an National Public Radio piece about barista competitions. There is a lesser known reference to "third wave coffee" in a 1999 article in an obscure trade publication called "Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Asia" by specialty coffee pioneer Timothy Castle. The concept of "third wave coffee" was inspired by the ideas behind the three waves of feminism. The first wave of coffee is generally understood as the era when most coffee consumers did not differente by origin or beverage type. Instant coffee, grocery store canned coffee, and diner coffee were all hallmarks of first wave coffee. Generally speaking, first wave coffee is focused on providing an accessible, low-price, consistent cup of coffee. Many restaurants offered free refills. The advent of the second wave of coffee is generally credited to Peet's Coffee & Tea of Berkeley, California, which in the late 1960s began artisanal sourcing, roasting, and blending with a focus on highlighting countries of origin and their signature dark roast profile. Peet's Coffee inspired the founders of Starbucks of Seattle, Washington, which evolved into arguably the most famous multinational coffee chain in the world. The second wave of coffee introduced the concept of different origin countries to coffee consumption, beyond a generic cup of coffee. Fueled in large part by market competition between Colombian coffee producers and coffee producers from Brazil through the 1960s, coffee roasters highlighted flavor characteristics that varied depending on what countries coffees came from. While certain origin countries grew to be prized among coffee enthusiasts and professionals, the world's production of high-altitude grown arabica coffee, grown in countries within the tropical zone, became sought-after as each country had particular flavor profiles that were considered interesting and desirable. In addition to country of origin, the second wave of coffee introduced coffee-based beverages to the wider coffee-consuming world, particularly those traditional to Italy made with espresso. So while the first wave relied primarily on coffee's complexity but was not endeavoring to make it delicious on its own, the second wave brought wider enjoyment of coffee by a greater focus on how coffee can make for a pleasing specialty beverage experience. Third wave coffee is often associated with the concept of 'specialty coffee,' referring either to specialty grades of green coffee beans, or specialty coffee beverages of high quality and craft.
Use of the term
The third wave of coffee has been chronicled by publications such as The New York Times, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, La Opinión and The Guardian. In March 2008, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly defined the third wave of coffee by saying: The earlier term "specialty coffee" was coined in 1974, and refers narrowly to high-quality beans scoring 80 points or more on a 100-point scale.
Current status
In the US, there are a large number of third-wave roasters, and some stand-alone coffee shops or small chains that roast their own coffee. There are a few larger businesses, more prominent in roasting than in operating – the "Big Three of Third Wave Coffee" are Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea of Chicago; Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Oregon; and Counter Culture Coffee of Durham, North Carolina, all of which engage in direct trade sourcing. Intelligentsia has seven bars – four in Chicago, three in Los Angeles, together with one "lab" in New York. Stumptown has 10 bars – five bars in Portland, one in Seattle, two in New York, one in Los Angeles, and one in New Orleans. Counter Culture has eight regional training centers – that do not function as retail stores – one in each of: Chicago, Atlanta, Asheville, Durham, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. By comparison, Starbucks has over 23,000 cafes worldwide as of 2015. Both Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea and Stumptown Coffee Roasters were acquired by Peet's Coffee & Tea in 2015. At that time, Philz Coffee, Verve Coffee Roasters and Blue Bottle Coffee were also considered major players in third wave coffee. In 2014, Starbucks invested around $20 million in a coffee roastery and tasting room in Seattle, targeting the third wave market. Starbucks' standard cafes use automated espresso machines for efficiency and safety reasons, in contrast to third-wave competitors.
