 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(March 2023) |
Third-wave coffee is a movement in coffee marketing emphasizing high quality. Beans are typically sourced from individual farms and are roasted more lightly to bring out their distinctive flavors. [1] Though the term was coined in 1999, [2] the approach originated in the 1970s, with roasters such as the Coffee Connection. [3] [4]
The term "third-wave coffee" is generally attributed to the coffee professional Trish Rothgeb, who used the term in a 2003 article, [5] alluding to the three waves of feminism. [6] However, the specialty coffee broker and author, Timothy J. Castle, had already used the term in an article (Coffee's Third Wave) that he wrote for the Dec 1999 / Jan 2000 issue of the magazine Tea & Coffee Asia. [7] The first mention in the mainstream media was in 2005, in a National Public Radio piece about barista competitions. [8]
In the first wave of coffee, coffee consumers generally did not differentiate by origin or beverage type. Instant coffee, grocery store canned coffee, and diner coffee were all hallmarks of first wave coffee. First wave coffee focuses on low price and consistent taste. Many restaurants offered free refills.
The second wave of coffee is generally credited to Peet's Coffee & Tea [ citation needed ] 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. 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.[ citation needed ]
Third-wave coffee is often associated with the concept of 'specialty coffee,' referring either to specialty grades of green (raw and unroasted) coffee beans (distinct from commercial grade coffee), or specialty coffee beverages of high quality and craft. [9]
In the late twentieth century, instant coffee dominated the UK market. [10] Inspired by the example of Starbucks, Seattle Coffee Company opened in London in 1995, opening over 50 stores before being taken over by Starbucks in 1998. [11] Flat White, an early third-wave café, opened in 2005 [10] and James Hoffmann's third-wave roastery Square Mile opened in 2008. [11]
From 2007 to 2009, the World Barista Championship was won by Londoners, starting with Hoffmann, and the 2010 edition of the competition was hosted in London. Hoffmann has since come to be regarded as a pioneer in the third-wave coffee movement in the UK, with The Globe and Mail describing him as "the godfather of London's coffee revolution". [12] [13] [14] [15]
The third-wave of coffee has been chronicled by publications such as The New York Times , [16] [17] [18] LA Weekly , [1] [19] [20] Los Angeles Times , [21] [22] [2] La Opinión [23] and The Guardian . [24]
In March 2008, the food critic Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly defined the third wave of coffee:
The first wave of American coffee culture was probably the 19th-century surge that put Folgers on every table, and the second was the proliferation, starting in the 1960s at Peet's and moving smartly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of espresso drinks and regionally labeled coffee. We are now in the third wave of coffee connoisseurship, where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, roasting is about bringing out rather than incinerating the unique characteristics of each bean, and the flavor is clean and hard and pure. [1]
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. [25]
The third wave of coffee has been popular in Australia. Melbourne is known as the "capital of coffee" with its many cafes. [26]
Across the US and Canada, there are many 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" [27] [28] 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. [29] Stumptown has 11 bars – five bars in Portland, one in Seattle, two in New York, one in Los Angeles, one in Chicago, and one in New Orleans. [30] 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. [31]
Both Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea and Stumptown Coffee Roasters were acquired by Peet's Coffee & Tea (itself part of JAB Holding Company) in 2015. [31] At that time, Philz Coffee (headquartered in San Francisco), Verve Coffee Roasters (headquartered in Santa Cruz, California) and Blue Bottle Coffee (headquartered in Oakland, California) were also considered major players in third-wave coffee. [31]
In 2014, Starbucks invested around $20 million in a coffee roastery and tasting room in Seattle, targeting the third-wave market. [31] Starbucks' standard cafes use automated espresso machines which are faster and require less training than conventional espresso machines used by third-wave competitors. [31]
Espresso is a coffee-brewing method in which a small amount of nearly boiling water is forced under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
A barista is a person, usually a coffeehouse employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks and other beverages.
Peet's Coffee is a San Francisco Bay Area-based specialty coffee roaster and retailer owned by JAB Holding Company via JDE Peet's. Founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet in Berkeley, California, Peet's introduced the United States to its darker roasted Arabica coffee in blends including French roast and grades appropriate for espresso drinks. Peet's offers freshly roasted beans, brewed coffee and espresso beverages, as well as bottled cold brew. In 2007, Peet's opened the first LEED Gold Certified roastery in the United States. Peet's coffee is sold in over 14,000 grocery stores across the United States.
International Coffee & Tea, LLC, doing business as The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, is an American coffee shop chain founded in 1963. Since 2019, it is a trade name of Ireland-based Super Magnificent Coffee Company Ireland Limited. Its 80% stake is by multinational company Jollibee Foods Corporation. It operates as an independent subsidiary and remains headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
Matthew Algie is an independent coffee roaster with registered offices at 16 Lawmoor Road, Glasgow, United Kingdom. The company sells its coffee to coffee shops, bars, restaurants, hotels and businesses across the UK & Ireland and also offers coffee machines for hire - supported by a network of field engineers as well as a range of coffee-related equipment and complementary products through its sister-company Espresso Warehouse. Additionally, Matthew Algie also provide SCA accredited barista training courses, taught via their training campuses based in London, Glasgow & Dublin.
Gerald Baldwin is an American businessman. He and two other entrepreneurs, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, founded Starbucks in Seattle, in 1971. He is a Sonoma Valley vintner, and co-founder of J. Baldwin Wines.
Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process is what produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to change in taste. Unroasted beans contain similar if not higher levels of acids, protein, sugars, and caffeine as those that have been roasted, but lack the taste of roasted coffee beans due to the Maillard and other chemical reactions that occur during roasting.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is a coffee roaster and retailer based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The chain's flagship café and roastery opened in 1999. Three other cafes, a roastery and a tasting annex have since opened in Portland, as well as locations in Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles,. Stumptown is owned by Peet's Coffee, which in turn is owned by JAB Holding Company. The company was an early innovator with cold brew coffee in nitro cans and have continued to develop other cold brew product innovations.
Intelligentsia Coffee is an American coffee roasting company and retailer based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1995 by Doug Zell and Emily Mange, Intelligentsia is considered a major representative of third wave coffee. In 2015, Peet's Coffee & Tea acquired a majority stake in the company.
Alfred H. Peet was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California, in 1966. Peet is widely credited with starting the specialty coffee revolution in the US. Among coffee historians, Peet has been called "the Dutchman who taught America how to drink coffee." Peet taught his style of roasting beans to Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, who, with his blessing, took the technique to Seattle and founded Starbucks in 1971. Peet later distanced himself, however, from the Starbucks trio as they experimented with ultra-dark roasts. "Baldwin never learned anything from me," Peet was later quoted as saying.
James Alexander Hoffmann is an English barista, YouTuber, entrepreneur, coffee consultant, and author. Hoffmann first came to prominence after winning the World Barista Championship in 2007 and has since been credited as a pioneer of Britain's third-wave coffee movement. Hoffmann has published three books, including The World Atlas of Coffee, amassed a significant following on YouTube, started several businesses, including the specialty coffee roaster Square Mile Coffee Roasters, and consulted for several coffee ventures.
David Schomer is a co-founder of Espresso Vivace. The Seattle Times said "Schomer is as influential in the gourmet coffee world as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is in the mainstream coffee industry."
The Easy Serving Espresso pod, is a small packed coffee pod with a paper filter covering for use in a non-grinding espresso machine. The E.S.E. standard was created by Italian Illy in the 1970s and is maintained by the "Consortium for the Development and the Protection of the E.S.E. Standard." It is open to all coffee roasters and machine manufacturers, making it the self-acclaimed "only open system available to the sector for espresso coffee prepared with paper pods".
Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., is a coffee roaster and retailer once headquartered in Oakland, California, United States. In 2017, a majority stake in the company was acquired by Nestlé (68%). It is a major player in third wave coffee. The company focuses on single-origin beans.
Café Allegro is a coffeeshop in the University District of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is notable for being one of the city's first espresso shops and for its role in the history of Starbucks, as the place where founding proprietor Dave Olsen designed the Starbucks coffee product line. Situated in an alleyway, the cafe features multiple entrances and rooms.
Seattle is regarded as a world center for coffee roasting and coffee supply chain management. Related to this, many of the city's inhabitants are coffee enthusiasts; the city is known for its prominent coffee culture and numerous coffeehouses.
Union Hand-Roasted Coffee is a privately owned British coffee roasting business based in East London, United Kingdom. The company was founded in 2001 by Jeremy Torz and Steven Macatonia. Coffee House says the company "effectively bridges the definitions of independent and mainstream" as they work according to craft principles while still selling their products in supermarkets.
Starbucks Reserve is a program by the international coffeehouse chain Starbucks. The program involves operation of worldwide roasteries; currently six are in operation. Also part of the program are 28 coffee bars preparing Starbucks Reserve products, what Starbucks considers its rarest and best-quality coffees, usually single-origin coffees. Some Starbucks Reserve coffee is also sold in about 1,500 of the chain's traditional outlets.
Spella Caffè is a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon, United States. Andrea Spella started the business as a cart in 2006, before opening a brick and mortar space in downtown Portland in 2010. The business has garnered a positive reception, and has been cited as an influence for other coffee company founders.
Public Domain Coffee is a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. Coffee Bean International opened the cafe in 2010.
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