An Intro to the Waves of Coffee. (Surfs Up)
- Austin Blevins
- Feb 15, 2020
- 5 min read
Whether you identify as an espresso lover from a cafe, an evening latte drinker or a homebrewer who researches different brewing methods, you are a lover of coffee. It is apart of you. Not to be judgmental, (this is my own personal journey) but I always used to get frustrated when I would read a blog by some "coffee cup of Java" Joe guy and he talked about their dark roast coffee and how the smokey flavors work great in their coffee pot brewer, all. in.comic.sans.font.
Look, I get it, we are all on our own journey but to me, it was frustrating for sure.
Though I knew I was in the wrong by judging that person. The more I thought about it I realized that they were simply stuck in a previous wave of coffee.
Coffee, just like most things in life, goes in waves. Energy is created and stored with momentum, and then dispersed in a crash, only to build a set up for the next wave. This is a brief overview of the waves of coffee, in each wave the enormity of coffee progression cannot be described in one blog post, because of that it will be brief.
*these waves do not include the early-Mid 1900's of Folgers and Maxwell House innovating coffee to the masses for profitability. Although this sets up the intentional mindset of the first wave. This takes into consideration only the American waves of coffee.
The first wave of coffee was centered around pioneering specialty coffee. I combine the early to mid-1960s as the beginning of the first wave. This time period selection is due to the marketing efforts by M. Faema for the first "pump based espresso machine", it was originally developed by Carlo Ernesto Valente in as early as 1945. Instead of using a manual piston to force the water through the grounds, an electric pump is used and the water supply is sent through the boiler before it touches the espresso grounds. Along with this revolutionary technology, In Berkeley California, A Dutch-American man named Alfred Peet opened "Peet's Coffee". They were arguably the first to focus on specialty coffee as it was in the late '60s. Alfred took the knowledge from his father who worked at a small coffee roastery in Holland and Alfred began roasting very strong dark Arabica beans geared toward espresso-based drinks.
The intentional tailoring toward espresso-based drinks and roasting technique set up the energy for the second wave to begin. Alfred taught three of his friends: Zev Siegl, Jerry Baldwin, and Gordon Bowker his technique on roasting. They went on to open a small cafe at Pike Place Market in Seattle called "Starbucks". They go on to "corporatize" the idea of "small cafe" and blow it to epic proportions.
The second wave is at mass the globalization of the term "Starbucks" focused mainly on sugar and profit as the heart of the second wave (which people loved). I try my absolute best to not make it sound as bad as it is, When you are as large as Starbucks automation has to rule, otherwise the human error would destroy the corporation entirely. The human aspect is taken away from daily duties. Each has its pros and cons but what triggers the third wave to be is the lack of humanity in the second wave.
The initial part of the third wave is full of passion and rebellion against the second wave. The pioneers of Counter Culture, Stumptown, and Intelligentsia created a culture that surrounded small-batch carefully crafted high-end specialty coffee that we know today as the norm. In the beginning and middle of the third wave, we correlated science with art and not only are we now tasting these unique flavors in coffee naturally but we now know why and how to replicate the flavors. Science, community, and passion are the pillars of the third wave, allowing for open transparency surrounding the coffee industry. Thanks to third-wave coffee we can more accurately brew coffee than ever before, using scales, refractometers, and roasting software that can replicate particular flavors across the board. We were able to do this in the second wave also but it was much more niche than the community focus we strive for in the coffee industry.
Our main focus of the third wave was to" fly the bird" to large corporations like Starbucks and say "we're local and for the people of coffee" like a politician who keeps their promises and then bakes you cookies for breakfast as a thank you. With a wave though comes change, and as the third wave progresses the pioneers become either sold out or grow into large scale corporations as their ancestors have and become rather pretentious. It is the nature of the business aspect of coffee that is a work in progress.
But where are we now? some like Sprudge say we are approaching the "New age" of coffee but what exactly is the new age? I believe we have come far in both technology and coffee since the 1960s but have not even scratched the surface on sustainability. After years of unrecyclable or compostable garbage, the coffee industry has left for the rest of us to deal with we are as an industry shifting our attention to the big problems we are facing as not only an industry but as a World.
With the coffee pricing crisis, climate change, and overpopulated landfills looming over our heads it's going to take all of us to be conscious about how we package, purchase, and promote the coffee in the new age. On the consumer side, it is going to take all of us trying our best to reduce our waste by using reusable cups at all times. We should give attention to companies like "Coffee Sock" based in Texas, who handmake compostable organic cotton coffee filters, and buying from other sustainable companies who want to use compostable material like GRIM COFFEE and "Steeped Coffee".
The next time someone talks about how they enjoy their Italian roast in a Moka pot, love them and don't get frustrated as I have before. They are valid in their love of coffee and instead of judging them just because they don't like your single-origin Burundi with tasting notes of rose and plum. Love them and understand that everyone is on their own journey. We aren't in mid-third wave anymore, where we can be judgmental and potentially pretentious.
The New Age is here, the New Age is now. It is time to wake up and give a damn, before its too late.
(My research has come over years of being apart of the coffee industry, but I want to attribute my learning to three places in particular to cite my sources:
For more information follow the above and below links.
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