The Third Wave of Coffee refers to a current movement to produce high-quality coffee, and consider coffee as an artisanal foodstuff, like wine, rather than a commodity, like wheat. This involves improvements at all stages of production, from improving coffee bean growing, harvesting, and processing, to stronger relationships between coffee growers and coffee traders and roasters, to higher quality and fresh roasting, at times called microroasting (by analogy with microbrew beer), to skilled brewing.
Third Wave Coffee aspires to the highest form of culinary appreciation of coffee, so that one may appreciate subtleties of flavor, bean varietal, and growing region – similar to other complex culinary products such as wine, tea, and chocolate. Distinctive features of Third Wave Coffee include direct trade coffee, high-quality beans (see specialty coffee for scale), single-origin coffee (as opposed to blends), lighter roasts of the beans, and latte art. It also sometimes includes naked portafilters, and revivals of alternative methods of coffee preparation, such as vacuum coffee (sometimes called "siphon") and individual drip brew.
The term "Third Wave" was coined in 2002, and refers narrowly to an American phenomenon, particularly from the 1990s and continuing today, but with some roots in the 1980s, 1970s, and 1960s. Similar movements exist in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. More broadly, Third Wave Coffee can be seen as part of the specialty coffee movement.
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Trish Rothgeb (formerly Skeie) of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters first wrote about the Third Wave of Coffee in a November 2002 article[1] of The Flamekeeper, a newsletter of the Roaster's Guild, a trade guild of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Nicholas Cho of Murky Coffee further defined the Third Wave of Coffee in an often-referenced online article[2] and earlier in his interview in March 2005 on National Public Radio's All Things Considered program.[3] More recently, the third wave of coffee has been chronicled by publications such as The New York Times,[4][5][6] LA Weekly,[7][8][9] Los Angeles Times,[10][11] La Opinión[12] and The Guardian.[13]
In March 2008, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly defined the third wave of coffee by saying:
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.[7]
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.
In the US, the market is very diverse. Most Third Wave Coffee is served in independently owned and operated coffee shops, with few chains, none large. There are a large number of roasters, often available via mail order, and some stand-alone coffee shops or small chains roast their own coffee; compare brewpub. There are a few larger businesses, more prominent in roasting than in operating – the "Big Three of Third Wave Coffee"[14][15] are commonly held to be Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea of Chicago, Illinois; Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Oregon; and Counter Culture Coffee of North Carolina, all of which engage in direct trade sourcing. Intelligentsia has 6 bars – 3 in Chicago, 3 in Los Angeles, together with 1 "lab" in New York, while Stumptown has 8 bars – 5 bars in Portland, 2 in Seattle, and 1 in New York. By comparison, Starbucks has well over 10,000 locations.
Important earlier influences are Peet's Coffee & Tea of Berkeley, California, which in the late 1960s began artisanal sourcing, roasting, and blending, and the Seattle coffee scene of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, which saw the birth of artisanal American espresso bars, and led to nationwide chains, notably Starbucks, which are retrospectively titled "Second Wave". (Peet's primarily retails beans for home brewing, features dark roasts, and did not serve espresso until 1984.) These in turn were predated by Italian American espresso bars, primarily serving immigrant communities, and 19th century "First Wave" coffee importers.
Another important event was the 1982 foundation of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Other early importers include Dallis Coffee (founded 1980s) and The Coffee Connection of Boston (founded 1974, following influence by Peet's).[16]