The Waves of Coffee

A Quick History of How We Got Here

Have you heard of the coffee waves?

If you've spent any time around a "coffee person," you've probably heard them throw around terms like "third wave" or "second wave." At first glance it sounds a bit like the COVID waves of 2020 and 2021, which, truthfully, I'd rather not revisit.

But that's not what we mean. In coffee, the waves describe the evolution of coffee culture and quality across the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. It's the story of how coffee went from terrible diner sludge to the specialty cup you're probably drinking right now.

I love talking about this because it's so interesting (at least, it is to a coffee nerd like me). Coffee has shaped our culture in ways most of us never stop to consider. If you're curious to go deeper, pick up The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen. It's a light, humorous read that takes you on a wild ride through coffee history. If it weren't for coffee, we might still be drinking alcohol for breakfast!

I'll be honest though. I hadn't fully appreciated coffee as a cultural phenomenon until a few years ago.

I was taking my first roasting course in Vancouver when the instructor told us to sit down and take notes on the history of coffee. My first thought was, what does this have to do with roasting? Can we just roast some coffee?

The reason became clear a little while later. There was no way to develop my own roasting style without understanding the history behind it first. You can't know where you're going if you don't know where the industry has been. That lesson was pivotal for me in my roasting journey.

So, let's break down the waves so the next time you're at a dinner party, you can hold your own in a coffee conversation, if that were to ever happen...

First Wave: Post-WWII, Diners, and Donut Shops

This is where mainstream coffee culture in the West really began.

The war had ended, the economy was booming, and people were settling back into everyday life. Enter diner coffee. It tasted terrible, but it woke you up, and that was the whole point. Dark, mucky sludge that got the job done and nothing more. Nobody was pretending otherwise.

Then Tim Hortons and Dunkin' Donuts entered the scene. The coffee was marginally better than what you'd get in a diner (the bar was very low), but paired with donuts and smart mass-market branding, it almost tasted like an upgrade. Both brands expanded rapidly because they took commodity coffee and made it feel like a consistent, familiar experience across an entire country. It obviously worked, they are still around today.

Second Wave: Starbucks Changes the Game

In the 1980s, Starbucks started an absolute craze.

After Howard Schultz purchased the company from its original founders, he transformed it into something clever. Inspired by European café culture, he took everything that made it appealing: the fancy drink names, the elevated atmosphere, the espresso-forward menu, and rebuilt it for a North American audience. He knew most people on this side of the Atlantic would look at a 6 oz single-shot cappuccino and wonder where the rest of it was. So he made the double shot the standard. He supersized everything. He made it cool to order a venti, extra-hot, quad-shot latte with extra foam.

Early Starbucks was actually good. The coffee quality was solid, the machines required real skill to operate, and the company was doing a credible job of bringing a rich café experience to the mainstream.

Then they got really big.

To scale, they started sourcing lower quality beans and switched to super-automatic machines. Baristas who once pulled shots and steamed milk by feel were now pressing buttons. The craft disappeared and a lot of those baristas got frustrated and left.

And then they opened their own cafés. That's where the third wave comes from.

Third Wave: Specialty Coffee Takes Over

Third wave coffee is what you see in Canada's specialty coffee scene today.

Traceable origins. Skilled baristas. Quality ingredients throughout. The difference in the cup is noticeable because the inputs are better and the attention to detail is real. Where Tim Hortons and Starbucks operate like fast food chains, a specialty café feels entirely different.

A few of the early names that helped define the third wave: 49th Parallel out of Vancouver (a significant force in shaping the global specialty coffee scene, not just Canada's) and Intelligentsia out of Chicago. Stumptown Coffee Roasters out of Portland is another one worth knowing.

Some coffee professionals have since pushed into what they're calling a fourth wave: experimental processing methods, ultra-light roast profiles (made famous by the Scandinavian coffee scene), and a deeper focus on terroir and traceability. It's all about the next new thing in coffee.

Where does Mood Artisan Coffee fit into all of this?

You might be wondering where Mood lands in all of this.

Honestly, it's a question I ask myself too. My best answer: we're a third wave brand with fourth wave sourcing strategies.

We bring in premium specialty coffee, sourced from sustainable farms that are organic and/or shade grown, even when the farm isn't officially certified as such. Certification is expensive and out of reach for a lot of small farms. That doesn't make the coffee any less exceptional.

Third wave built the infrastructure for traceable, relationship-driven sourcing. It made it possible to know exactly where your coffee comes from and who grew it. For us, that means sourcing exclusively from women farmers, co-ops, and collectives across the coffee belt. It also means better tasting coffee.

The waves fascinate me because each one built on the one before it. Without diner coffee, there's no Tim Hortons. Without Starbucks, there's no specialty movement. Without the baristas who walked out of corporate chains wanting something better, there's no third wave.

Innovation happens when people get frustrated enough with the current standard to go build something better.

That's especially relevant right now, as climate change and geopolitics continue to reshape how coffee is grown, processed, and shipped around the world. The next wave is already forming. It'll be shaped by the challenges we're dealing with today.

Sources:

1. Coffee Tides: The Waves of Coffee Defined by The Canadian Barista Institute
2. Norway and Coffee By Trish R Skeie
3. The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen