Third Wave Coffee Movement

Special bonus!  I try to explain Third Wave Coffee even though I’m not an expert.

Written by Kevin Whalen

You may hear about “Third Wave” - it treats coffee more like other gourmet artisan food items, especially like wine.  The coffee beans are given the same kind of attention wine grapes receive.

I first saw the phrase, “Third Wave Coffee” in an Athens, Greece, coffee shop a few years ago.  The sign was in Greek, but I think Google Translate does it justice.

Roughly speaking, the three waves (so far) are:

●       First Wave – at the end of coffee becoming popular during the Enlightenment, the First Wave was about commoditizing coffee and building mass consumption.  First Wave brought the emergence of pre-ground, shelf stable coffee (1800s to maybe 1960s)

●       Second Wave -known for coffee shops that offered much more than brewed coffee and included more espresso-based drinks, more specialty coffee drinks.  Second Wave brought us Starbucks and all the other coffee houses that took off during this time (1970s to early 2000s). 

●       Third Wave - focused on the specific coffee, including where it came from, who grew it, how it was roasted (not just how light or dark but times and temperatures to bring out the best flavors in different beans).  Third Wave also features how coffee was made.  There are constant innovations in brew technology – many of us have made espresso, filter/drip, pour over, French press, but there are also Chemex, AeroPress, Delter, moka pot, cold brew, on and on, and variations and improvements on each of those.   (Side note, no, I don’t own all these, but I do like espresso and I like my AeroPress.)

 There are varying definitions, but you’ll generally see “Third Wave” as referring to:

●       traceability - usually more than which region, Third Wave can identify which farmer, and sometimes, which plot of land on a particular farmer’s land;

●       lighter roasts – intended to highlight the flavor of the coffee bean and maintain complex flavors that may get roasted out in darker roasts.  2nd wave brought more dark roasts, which is why Starbucks was sometimes referred to as Charbucks;

●       brewing precision – some examples include:

• measuring grounds and water to the gram (the “golden ratio” is generally 1 gram of coffee to 15-18 grams of water by weight)

• thermometers for water temps (depending on preparation method, water should be anywhere from 160-to 200; , , for steamed milk, the temp should be 130F-150F

• gooseneck kettles to control the pour over, provide more even coffee extraction, better “bloom” control at the very beginning - seriously, people experiment with this, use robotics to test pour overs, on and on to keep finding better ways to do this . . . in the end, remember - there’s no one right way to brew coffee, there’s only what’s right for you.

●       sustainability - that means more organic-certified coffees (like our Farmer to Farmer coffee) and paying farmers better while improving working conditions (also like Farmer to Farmer).