hand waving about third waving
I follow a tremendous number of coffee blogs with my trusty RSS reader. There are more and more of them popping up all the time. Some are good, many are just junk blogs writing about coffee as a means of generating google ad revenue. One blog I’ve enjoyed is the far-ranging coffee blog of Bay Area coffee enthusiast Greg Sherwin. From detailed friendly reviews of small cafes to breaking coffee news from Nestle or McDonalds, Sherwin’s coffee interests are broad. Yesterday he dropped a post thumbing his nose at some of my brothers/sisters-in-arms and our pet conceits about coffee quality and hooked me into penning an overblown response, which I include below. [My non coffee-nerd readers should feel free to skip all this and instead follow this link to Nancy Reagan’s awe inspiring anti-drug music video.]
Mr. Sherwin said:
…However, Nick Cho’s reputation will unfortunately always be marred by his association with one of the most arrogant and proposterous claims ever made in America’s modern day quality espresso business. It’s the notion that quality coffee is in its Third Wave, a.k.a. the “Third Wave of Coffee”.
This is particularly unfortunate because the idea isn’t even Mr. Cho’s to begin with. As even he once pointed out, the blame lies squarely with Trish Skeie — who otherwise is one of quality coffee’s luminaries, given her role behind the Sebastopol, CA roastery, Taylor Maid Farms. (She is now Director of Coffee for Seattle’s highly respected Zoka Coffee.) In my mailbox today, I found this month’s Barista Magazine, which features an article by Trish Skeie under the self-serving title, “Third Wave In Its Third Year.”
…
Okay, I’ll bite.
The “third-wave” concept may yet be a little half-baked, but I suspect you’re trolling if you’d say there isn’t at least _something_ new happening under this umbrella.
A radical de-commodification of coffee is first and foremost the goal of this loose “movement”. Understanding coffee as a plant, understanding coffee from the perspective of growers, expressing unique characteristics of single estate coffees in the cup, building an educated consumer base… all of this contributing to an ecosystem that will lift dedicated small coffee farmers out of a quagmire that regards their crop as one global undifferentiated commodity.
Mere “specialty” coffee isn’t going to fix what is wrong with the global coffee market. Certification-based marketing doesn’t solve the problem (and shifts more burden onto producers while further obscuring the complex realities from consumers). Third-wave-ish notions of seed-to-cup or grower-to-consumer transparency have the potential to establish deeper and more lasting benefits to producers and open up the floodgates on the largely untapped potential of culinary appreciation of great coffees.
Its very easy to be cynical and view all of this hype as so much window dressing designed to yank the chains of wannabe snobs and slow-foods bandwagon hoppers, but those of us who have had the rare luxury of cupping many of the worlds best coffees in the last few years from the hands of some of the most skilled roasters have tasted a glimpse of something compelling and transcendent.
I see a lot of partially articulated “third wave” ideas getting glued onto every indie s-bux clone that learned to pour some latte art. There is an enthusiasm that is contagious about these new trends that people want to latch onto, not necessarily participating in the dialog or cognizant of how much hard work is left to be done. The nebulous nature of the undertaking, the potential pitfalls of easy compromises, the near-instantaneous dilution of the conceptual language, and the justifiable cynicism toward all things retail will make these changes a long hard slog.
We owe a lot to Italian espresso (a brewing methodology and roasting arts originally concocted to deal with having limited access to the higher grade green coffees). But obscuring farms and countries of origin behind fancy brand names, making false claims of shelf stability, and retaining as trade secrets the knowledge and artistry of improving cup quality are ideas (regardless of merit) whose time has passed. If this third-wave business means anything, it is probably close to an insurgent open-sourcing of an industry grown too complacent at home, fighting for innovations that might bootstrap the bean to the next level. And much like the open source movement in IT, the signal to noise ratio will probably remain heavy on the noise, even as the resulting sea change transforms and obliterates old models of doing business.
I don’t think its fair to say that Nick or Trish or anyone of us in the third wave echo chamber is taking credit for creating this swell. At best, we’re all waxing our surfboards and praying this wave will be big enough to wash away a lot of the cruft and hucksterism of the global coffee machine, contributing where we can, running our mouths, drawing lines in the shifting sand, and enjoying better coffee.
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April 23rd, 2006 at 7:39 pm
thanks for this response.
April 24th, 2006 at 1:17 am
The nebulous nature of the undertaking, the potential pitfalls of easy compromises, the near-instantaneous dilution of the conceptual language, and the justifiable cynicism toward all things retail will make these changes a long hard slog.
That’s a thought (series of thoughts) that could use further articulation. Especially the “justifiable cynicism to all things retail” - no idea where you’re going with that concept.
Perhaps our shop is one of the “clones who learned to pour some latte art” you refer to. I don’t know. We’re still relatively new to the whole business, but in the short time we’ve been around, we’ve done a lot to elevate awareness of decent coffee in our city. We could do a lot more, but it’s pretty frigging isolated - 5 hour drive to Jay and Nick, 7 to Gimme!, 8 to Counter Culture, 10 to Intelly.
And there’s no community here. The local roasters see us as a threat because we were the first to bring Intelligentsia to town while everyone else (save one shop using CCC, one using Orinoco) uses one of the three local roasters. Talking to these roasters about origin and quality - even putting roast dates on bags - is like talking to a wall - and perhaps justifably so as they’re already making decent money. They’d just as soon copy an existing blend (and one has already copied a reasonable facsimile of our roaster’s espresso blend, but not for production) than work on understanding how to create their own. The one local coffee-related project everyone is delighted with supports a Nicaraguan co-op through the sale of $7 bags of “organic” beans that produce dreck.
We’d love to do more, but how… we kind of feel like the red-headed stepchild out here. What do you want from those of us who weren’t part of the original nucleus?
April 24th, 2006 at 8:20 am
You should c&p this over to Sherwin’s comment section to get some dialog going right on his page. Is he aware of your response?
April 24th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Rich -
By all accounts you guys at Aldo are doing some cool stuff (yours is one of the blogs I follow). You clearly approach coffee with a very different regard than typical indie shops and think of your people as something more than “customers” and “employees”. And you’re working with one of the most progressive and quality focused roasters in the country.
When I talk about cynicism about retail, I’m referring to the inclination many people have to viewing any human interaction mediated by a cash register as one sort of thing. When things are being bought and sold we are conditioned to proceed with suspicion towards hype and marketing. The authentic value proposition is at best a subtext hiding under a polite, well-tread dialog of cliches between seller and prospective buyer.
When you initiate someone into a more aficionado style of relating to coffee you are giving them a framework on which to advance their curiosity into learning and meaning. A fair bit more than just waving some exotic sounding farm name in front of someone to make them feel special about the pound of beans they just bought, though this is often how it starts.
I think a lot of people get into the coffeeshop business who don’t really enjoy coffee but romanticize the idea of being cafe owners. And there is an almost predatory element within the industry ready to sell snake oil to these folks, pushing a business-as-usual s-bux style model that is predicated on giving the customer what they’ve already come to expect. For some shops in some markets thats enough for some measure of success - surviving as an “independent”. More power to ‘em, but for truly coffee-centric, people-centric shops these lesser indies can represent a dilution in the marketplace that makes it challenging to get noticed. You advance one customer at a time towards getting people to develop a taxonomy more sophisticated than the categories “starbucks” and “not-starbucks”.
I think the work of people like you, sharing your passion and building a culture around your shop, is contributing to the overall pull of these better notions of what a coffee shop can be and the industry as a whole will start to drift in this direction.
Sam -
I submitted the comment to his site, but it hasn’t appeared yet. I think Nick Cho also has a response in the queue.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
here was my response to that Greg guy:
Thanks for the lashing…it’s all good for the discussion!
But really, you seem to be loading a lot on me that was never the intention. I didn’t create anything..least of all a marketing scheme. I’ve never trademarked it or collected any money related to this term…(okay I bought the domain name , but someone else has put up the dot-net version anyway…very cool actually) I observed something and decided to call it. That happed three years ago…but I’ve been in specialty coffee for almost 20 years. I have been tasting espresso for longer than that. My latest article tells how, more than a decade ago, I tasted an amazing shot.
The Barista Magazine article just breaks down the last three years or so, but not strictly three years. No where do I suggest that good coffee has only existed for three years.
Can you refrain from personal opinions about my friends wearing pampers and just look at the idea of it. It is truly an exciting time in coffee. So many doors are opening. I could care less if you call it third wave or name it your own thing…just look at it. I’m amazed everyday! I can say this because, as I’ve said, I’ve been in the business for almost 20 years. I do not throw these things around lightly. This is my passion and my livelihood, man!
You also assume that the younger, newer members in the industry do not appreciate the devout and knowledgeable customer bases they have fostered. You also assume that they disregard the lessons learned by those who came before them. You assume a lot.
Colombia is spelled Colombia…thanks for your time.
t
–
Trish R. Skeie
Director of Coffee
Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co.
Seattle, Washington
(206) 217-5519
April 24th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
tonx-
the follow-up comment is the best part of your whole rant. if for no other reason than that i have always attached a certain amount of distrust to the cash-register exchange, thus gleefully poking at some 3rd wave self promoters and questioning the oddity of “reviewing” a new coffee product/service (unskeptical drooling, in many cases) near a full-page ad of the same product in some trade publication. erg. all of this still bothers me.
BUT you point out, unsentimentally, the other side of the same coin … namely that the *$/non-*$ divide is one that hangers-on have also capitalized on, diluting what is essentially the third wave’s non-neogtiable calling card: what’s in the cup. meaning … that for all the grating effect nick cho may or may not have, his shop is a must-stop. and for all the eyebrow-raising ad-content juxtapositions in barista mag, they are pushing the same obvious goal — cup improvement.
that’s the ultimate argument, and a perspective worth maintaining ‘midst all the third-wave punditry echoes.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Btw, site comments are up… and thanks for posting.
To return the favor in kind… if nothing else good comes from this, I am glad to have at least started some discussion. Clearly, there is something going on with the expanding awareness, interest, and support for better coffee from bean to cup. Some of it is “push” — with the few who can set a standard and have it recognized as such. But the greater side of this inequality equation is “pull” — with consumers largely commissioning/subsidizing these standard bearer’s passion for quality and completeness so that many can stay solvent in their pursuits.
My criticisms aren’t with all of this and the social phenomenon surrounding it. My criticism is that we can utter a phrase such as “Third Wave” in the first person plural without spitting microfoam out our noses … seemingly without acknowledging when one has crossed the line of taking themselves too seriously to the point of failing to recognize self-parody.
Because for someone not in the “nucleus” — to coin Rich’s exemplary, final, red-headed stepchild paragraph in his post above — any Third Wave has come to represent more and more of a divisive wedge than an inclusive yearning for a better product and experience. This despite whether calling what we’re in “Third Wave” is something meaningful to begin with.
Now I know Nick will probably lay down some semantic argument about how any Third Wave has nothing to do with any of this. But the problem is that the term’s usage and definition are growing well beyond the aforementioned nucleus. And part of this is clearly by design (see: Trish’s article). You simply cannot promote a concept, presume that you hold exclusive licensing rights over its definition, continue to promote it publicly, and then cry foul when it falls into untrained hands and comes back as something you had not intended.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:42 am
To me, I think alot of you are overthinking and over-worrying about this “Third Wave Thing.”
Certainly, the Third Wave can be divisive and I think that’s a natural course of progression in our Western World. Just like the Pre-Teen, Tween and Teen child feels the need to push themselves and separate themselves from their parents, the Third Wave is doing the same. How many of you hung out with your parents when you were sixteen? It’s the same here.
The Third Wave is a new generation of coffee professionals looking to expand on what already exists. And while many see this new generation as very Oi and Punk Rock, it’s still rooted in the traditions of the previous generations - just like the petulant child who will never escape from the basics of his/her family.
I enjoyed a discussion with some friends in Charlotte and the topic was: “Is David Scholmer Third Wave?” In many ways, he’s not part of the Third Wave. Schomer is still in his own little world, doing his own thing. But could the Third Wave have evolved to where it is today without Schomer’s work and passion? I doubt it. His work and legacy are central to the Third Wave, but he’s not part of the Wave.
As in music, one builds upon the other, when I find friends who are fans of Duran Duran, I always let them listen to some late Japan or David Sylvian, without telling them who they are listening. Invariably, they think it’s some obscure Duran Duran track, but it’s not. It’s the influences that Duran Duran built their sound upon. It’s not Duran Duran, but it is integral to the development of the Fab Five.
I personally don’t know what or who this original “nucleus” is/was. All I do know is that the term was coined by Trish to describe the new movement in the industry. A different focus for a new generation. It is what it is. And it is what you make of it. You can choose to face this “Third Wave” as though it were some divisive tour de force, or you can embrace it and take it for a ride.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
but you can try to redirect people’s weird ideas…and if you (Greg) are allowed to run rampant with your weirdness, we can answer back any old way we like.
thankee
April 26th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Tonx,
Thanks for the explanation. And for the encouragement - we’re surprised to be on your radar, but happy we are. We’ve been wondering who our mystery RSS readers are…
April 26th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
This is a really neat discussion to bad it was filled with unsubstantiated opinions wrapped in minor facts on both sides. The passion behind the cause has led to distracting venom hidden in polite “snappy” intelligent comments. I do believe that the 3rd wave is a valid thought process on coffee in general, but like I always say I believe the customer is being overlooked and skoffed at by the Intelligentsia of coffee… (not the one in Chicago). As a bystander it just seems like most meaningful discussions in coffee that have dissenting opinions are filled with personal jabs and quips or just plain blatant disrespect. Its unfortunate.
April 26th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
I hit send too fast, but I amglad everything usually gets resolved relatively positively once cooler heads prevail…… Trish I gotcher back….. even though you left us Bay Area guys behind…hahhaaha
April 26th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
its weird to me that a couple months ago (maybe even just a couple weeks ago) “third wave” was just a shorthand catch all term that few people seemed to have heard and now it is the subject of tongue wagging, intense scrutiny, and backlash.
I think in any industry this big and with this much inertia you’ll see people trying to draw lines and define their own philosophical trajectories. The internet is just speeding that up and adding new layers of dialog to the process. I think its all quite reasonable and healthy and very far from exclusionary. I think anyone who is actually offended by any of it is probably overreacting or extrapolating one persons poor diplomacy onto a whole group of us.
As it is, its probably just as well that the term “third wave” is a point of contention as that makes it less likely people will throw it around haphazardly or glue themselves to it casually. The nuts and bolts of the ever changing landscape of the coffee industry are still being screwed and unscrewed.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Having just written an article called “Coffee’s Third Wave” for a new magazine called Imbibe (the magazine is about wine, spirits, tea, coffee, etc; there is a web site, but my article isn’t available there) I guess I have to jump in here, especially because I quote Nick, Trish, Tony, James, and lots of other people therein.
As I see it, the term third wave is a generalization, a construct, a way of trying to describe a new =energy that has infected the coffee scene of late. Of course people produced good coffee before the so-called third wave came along, and of course there are people who take the whole third wave idea way too far.
But as somebody who’s been obsessing over espresso in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 25 years, I’ve got to say that–with a few exceptions, which I’ll get to–until James opened Blue Bottle there was not a single venue in the immediate Bay Area that I felt comfortable recommending to friends who asked me where they could get a real espresso. Ritual, which I feature in the article, was another milestone–a full-service cafe serving up espresso drinks made to the standards that have been set in the Pacific Northwest over the past ten or fifteen years, a place where the baristas take obsessive care with every shot. And, of course, there’s Andrew Barnett up in Santa Rosa, who also deserves mention for the fine coffees he roasts.
The Bay Area may have been first, but IMHO the Bay Area institutions got lazy and sloppy, and didn’t pay any attention to what was happening to the north. Fifteen or 20 years ago, Mr. Espresso was roasting some dynamite espresso, but I haven’t been able to drink it for years. When Iolanda was still at the Trieste in the seventies and eighties, she knew how to pull a shot. Ever since then the Trieste’s baristas have been pretty clueless. They just don’t care.
Call it what you will, there’s a new energy in the coffee world, and it’s spreading around the country. There’s a commitment to work with farmers at origin and to spotlight the best coffees they can produce instead of dumping the good and the bad into the same pot and calling it Colombian or Guatemalan. Maybe, just maybe, in about twenty years coffee will be treated with the respect it deserves. And if that happens it will be the result of the passion and caring of a lot of people, including those who have embraced the term third wave.
–Richard
April 27th, 2006 at 9:46 am
“To return the favor in kind… if nothing else good comes from this, I am glad to have at least started some discussion. Clearly, there is something going on with the expanding awareness, interest, and support for better coffee from bean to cup. Some of it is “push” — with the few who can set a standard and have it recognized as such. But the greater side of this inequality equation is “pull” — with consumers largely commissioning/subsidizing these standard bearer’s passion for quality and completeness so that many can stay solvent in their pursuits.” (Greg)
There is another method of “pull” being implemented here: those of us who have been in the business for more than one “wave” waking up to the harsh reality of our mediocre efforts, complacency, burnout, whatever. The first time I heard the term used publicly (in the NPR story) I did not say, “Damn, I gotta be a part of that.” But it caught my attention and I found myself wanting to know more. As a result I got pulled into a current that has me wanting to get better at every single aspect of what we do with coffee or find something else to do.
“As a bystander it just seems like most meaningful discussions in coffee that have dissenting opinions are filled with personal jabs and quips or just plain blatant disrespect. Its unfortunate.” (EspressoDOM)
It is regrettable when those kinds of attacks happen in any field. But our industry demands strong, informed opinions and the opportunity to express them. Nick, Jay, Trish and others are the most visible participants in the Third Wave discussion and that might make them an easy target. But more and more people are joining the debate as a result of their omnipresence. To say that the concept is fueled by vanity or mere snobbery is to ignore the number of new people who have come to the table. Including those of us, as Rich Westerfield pointed out, who are geographically isolated.
Russell Chisholm
The Easy Chair Coffee Shop
Blacksburg, Virginia
May 1st, 2006 at 2:12 pm
hey all,
after thinking for a long time what i wanted to say here, lemme finally say it.
the crucial point is tonx’s statement “radical de-commodification of coffee,” imvho. doesn’t the idea of “waves” implicitly assume that american coffee history starts at 1882? not to criticize trish in any way.
but before that! shouldn’t we be asking ourselves about the period before the establishment of the coffee exchange? how was coffee sold and viewed then? there didn’t used to be these poor quality, national brands, you know.
i think some study of pre-commodity coffee in the u.s.a. might show that the 3rd wave and the specialty coffee movement is in some ways a sort of cycle of return to the earlier history of coffee in north america. not all of that is salvageable, nor should it be.
while other parts, other parts might be more interesting. . .this is exactly the kind of thing to talk to don schoenholt about. (hint)
happy coffee,
f