Third wave

A coffee industry movement that emerged in the 2000s, treating coffee as a craft product like wine — emphasising origin, variety, processing, light roasting, and brewing precision over commodity convenience.

Why it matters — Third wave reframed coffee from a beverage to a tasting experience. Most of what specialty cafés serve today — single origins, light roasts, V60s, latte art, transparent sourcing — is a third-wave inheritance.

Good to know

• The "first wave" was mass-market coffee (instant, supermarket); the "second wave" was Starbucks-style retail; the "third wave" is specialty.
• A "fourth wave" idea (technology, science, fermentation experimentation) is now widely discussed but not formally defined.