First, Second and Third Wave Coffee Explained (and the Fourth)

The “waves” of coffee describe how coffee culture has changed, mainly in the United States. First wave coffee (from the 1800s) was about convenience: cheap, canned and instant coffee for everyone, from brands like Folgers and Maxwell House. Second wave coffee (from the late 1960s) was about the café experience and espresso drinks, led by Peet’s and Starbucks. Third wave coffee (from the late 1990s and 2000s) treats coffee like wine, focusing on the bean itself: where it was grown, by whom, how it was processed, lighter roasts and careful brewing. Some now talk of a fourth wave built on science, technology and sustainability.

Where the “Waves” Idea Comes From

Coffee itself is much older than the waves. It was first cultivated and brewed in Yemen by the 15th century, and coffee houses spread across the Middle East and Europe in the 1500s and 1600s; see our history of the coffee house and history of coffee. The “wave” labels are a modern way of describing American coffee culture since the 1800s. The term “third wave” is usually credited to coffee professional Trish Rothgeb, who used it in a 2003 article in the Roasters Guild newsletter The Flamekeeper, borrowing the idea from the waves of feminism, although coffee writer Timothy Castle had used the phrase a few years earlier.

What Is First Wave Coffee?

First wave coffee made coffee an everyday product for everyone. In the 1800s, most Americans bought green beans and roasted them at home. That changed as companies began selling roasted and ground coffee:

• 1850: William Bovee’s Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills in San Francisco sold roasted, ground coffee; James A. Folger later took over the business, which became Folgers.
• 1892: Joel Cheek created the Maxwell House blend, named after the Nashville hotel that served it.
• 1900: Hills Bros. introduced vacuum-packed coffee in cans, keeping ground coffee fresher for longer.
• 1900s: instant coffee arrived, from Satori Kato’s 1901 powder to Nescafé in 1938; see our history of instant coffee and how instant coffee is made.

The goal was convenience and low prices, and it worked: coffee became cheap and available everywhere. The cost was flavor. Most first wave coffee was a blend of low-grade beans, roasted for shelf life rather than taste, and sold ground in cans. That legacy is still on supermarket shelves today.

What Is Second Wave Coffee?

The second wave was a reaction to bland canned coffee. In 1966, Dutch-born Alfred Peet opened Peet’s Coffee in Berkeley, California, selling fresh, dark-roasted whole beans and teaching customers about origins. Peet’s inspired and supplied the founders of Starbucks, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, who opened their first Seattle store in 1971 to sell beans and equipment.

In the 1980s, Howard Schultz turned Starbucks into an Italian-style espresso bar, and from the 1990s it spread around the world. The second wave made espresso drinks, lattes and the café as a “third place” between home and work part of everyday life. Its critics say it put the brand, the atmosphere and sweet, flavored drinks ahead of the coffee itself, often with very dark roasts. Chains such as Caribou Coffee and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf grew in the same era.

What Is Third Wave Coffee?

Third wave coffee treats coffee as an artisanal product, like wine or craft beer. The focus moves from the café and the drinks to the bean and how it is grown, processed, roasted and brewed. Roasters such as Intelligentsia (Chicago, 1995), Counter Culture (Durham, North Carolina, 1995) and Stumptown (Portland, Oregon, 1999) led the movement in the US.

• Traceability: bags name the country, region, farm or washing station, variety, altitude and processing method. See our guide to reading coffee bag labels.
• Direct relationships: many roasters buy directly from producers and pay well above commodity prices, often called direct trade. See coffee certifications and ethically sourced coffee.
• Lighter roasts: roasted to show each coffee’s origin flavors rather than the roast.
• Careful brewing: pour-over, AeroPress and precise espresso, with scales and gooseneck kettles. See our pour-over guide.
• Quality scores: specialty coffee scores 80 points or more on the Specialty Coffee Association’s 100-point scale; see specialty vs regular coffee.

Third wave cafés also brought public cuppings, latte art competitions and the World Barista Championship to a wider audience, and the gear moved home: burr grinders, scales and gooseneck kettles are now normal kit for home brewers. Big chains have borrowed the style, with single-origin coffees and premium roasteries, which purists say blurs the line. Find a good one near you with our guide to specialty coffee shops.

Fair Trade, Direct Trade and the Third Wave

Ethical sourcing runs through the third wave. The first Fairtrade label for coffee launched in the Netherlands in 1988 to guarantee farmers a minimum price, and certifications such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and organic are now common. Many third wave roasters go further with direct trade, building long-term relationships with farmers and paying quality premiums. New rules, such as the European Union’s deforestation regulation, are also pushing roasters and importers to prove where their coffee comes from.

What Is Fourth Wave Coffee?

There is no agreed definition of a fourth wave, and some see it simply as the third wave maturing. The ideas most often grouped under it are:

• Science and precision: refractometers, water chemistry, techniques like the Ross droplet technique and smart brewers bring café-level consistency to home brewing.
• New processing and varieties: anaerobic and other experimental fermentations, and interest in rarer species such as Excelsa.
• Sustainability and climate: regenerative farming, lower-carbon roasting and coffee that can cope with a warming climate.
• New ways of drinking: cold brew, canned and ready-to-drink coffee, plant-based milks, espresso cocktails and coffee subscriptions.

Whatever the label, the direction has been the same from wave to wave: drinkers know more about their coffee, and the distance between the farmer and the cup keeps shrinking.