What Is Third-Wave Coffee?
What the wonky term means—and what’s coming next.
The term “third wave coffee” is a lot like “postmodernism”—something that’s easy to recognize but hard to define. You know it when you see it: minimalist cafés with bare wood and Edison bulbs, light-roasted beans with flavors compared to blueberries, and ambient music that’d fit in at a college town’s used-book store. That means small-batch production attuned to the nuances of a particular bean and lighter roasts that preserve more of that bean’s raw savor.
But if you ask some coffee professionals, they’re most excited about what comes after the third-wave movement: taking the lessons learned from exacting coffee experimentation and making them more accessible to everyone. That means new and efficient but quality-focused forms of mass production that’d allow for lower quotations, as well as a greater focus on sustainable coffee agriculture on a rapidly warming planet where small growers usually get a raw agreement.
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