It’s said that we’re in the third wave of coffee, so what were the first two
waves? Well, the first wave didn’t come until the mid-twentieth century,
but let’s not ignore the hundreds of years of coffee that came before.
As far as we know, coffee (the drink) has been around since the fifteenth
century, when someone in the south-western highlands of Ethiopia (possibly
a goatherd, possibly a starving, exiled saint—nobody seems quite sure)
realized that boiling the seeds of the native coffea tree produced a drink that
was both flavorsome and gave a pleasant little energy kick to the drinker.
The
drink spread throughout the Middle East, and by the end of the sixteenth
century these beans were being traded across Europe, from where they were
shipped to growing colonies throughout Asia, the Pacific and America.
The next big shift came during World
War II, when someone figured out how to
freeze-dry their brew and the world was
granted the (debatable) joy of instant. It
became easy and cheap to take coffee
across continents and oceans, later to be
brought to life with just a splash of boiling
water. This is known as the first wave of
coffee, which took the stuff into homes and
offices across the developed world.
The second wave was the arabica bean boom—companies like Lavazza and Peet’s started roasting higher-quality arabica to be sold to cafés and supermarkets. This was the era that saw massive coffee chains such as Starbucks taking over entire shopping strips, and good coffee became all about the espresso machine.
And now for the third wave, where we go back to the bean and all it has to offer. It’s all about seeing the production of coffee as an art—like winemaking or micro-brewing beer. Concerns about exploitation in the coffee industry have led to a new age of transparency, where baristas, roasters, importers and growers are more intent than ever to open up. And the best thing about this is that it’s becoming easier for anyone to learn the ropes, without having to spend thousands of dollars on equipment.
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