Specialty Coffee

The third wave movement gained momentum in the 1990s, but Blue Bottle Coffee, founded after 2000, is another pioneering third wave coffee shop committed to transparency in its origins, and has now become a global phenomenon.

Blue Bottle Coffee was founded in 2002 in Oakland, California, by freelance clarinetist James Freeman.

Freeman began his business by roasting small batches in a 186-square-foot (approximately 17 square meters) flower shed and delivering the beans to local customers by bicycle.

Around the time Portland, Stumptown, and Chicago's Intelligentsia were being established, the third wave of coffee was also emerging in Durham, North Carolina.

Counterculture Coffee is a specialty coffee roasting company based there. Since its founding in 1995, the company has been known for its commitment to education and sustainability. Operating as a wholesale-only roasting company with a nationwide network of training centers, it has become a leading brand in the US specialty coffee industry.

Like Stumptown, Intelligentsia is a company known for pioneering the US coffee third wave movement.

Intelligentsia Coffee was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1995 and specializes in high-quality, freshly roasted specialty coffee.

Intelligentsia was founded by Doug Zell and Emily Manzi, who moved to Chicago from San Francisco.

The founders were frustrated by the lack of freshly roasted coffee in the city. They opened their first coffee bar on Broadway in the Lakeview neighborhood, selling beans roasted in-house in a vintage Probat roaster to ensure freshness.

In the 1990s, Starbucks became a place that offered a "third place," with Frappuccinos and cappuccinos taking center stage, and espresso and blended coffees becoming ingredients on the menu rather than the main focus.

At the same time, specialty coffee culture, a reaction against commodity coffee, was beginning to spread in the United States. A genre known as the "third wave" was born, offering carefully crafted specialty coffee in a format similar to the coffee bars that Starbucks' Howard Schultz was initially inspired by in Italy.

Since 1996, the BOP, organized by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP), has brought attention to the high quality of Panamanian coffee.
An article by Price Peterson in SCAP describes this situation in the 2000s.
Geisha coffee beans submitted by Price Peterson's Esmeralda farm were sold for a then-record high price of $21 per pound (about 450g).
This was about 10 times the price of the standard high-end coffee at the time.
The Peterson family separated lots into sections of their large farm and submitted the best-flavored ones to BOP.

After the founding of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP), producers in the Boquete and Volcán regions of Panama, with the cooperation of the Specialty Coffee Association of the Americas (SCAA), began a movement to create a system for having their country's coffee evaluated using international cupping standards.

Then, with the cooperation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Panama Tourism Board, the first Best of Panama (BOP) coffee quality competition was held in 1996.

Panama is a producer of coffee beans known today as Geisha, a premium specialty coffee.
Coffee production in this country also had deep ties to the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).
In 1989, the ICO price agreement collapsed, causing coffee prices to fall in producing countries.
For example, in Panama, the price was US$1.20 per pound (approximately 450g), but after the price collapse, it is said to have fallen to US$0.74.

With the establishment of the SCAA in the United States, evaluation standards were established to define whether a coffee is specialty.

 1. Fragrance: The aroma of the coffee grounds and the liquid. 

2. Flavor: Evaluation upon sipping the liquid. 

3. Aftertaste: Lingering aftertaste after swallowing. 

4. Acidity: Pleasant brightness and juiciness. 

5. Body: Texture and weight on the tongue. 

6. Balance: Harmony of all elements.

As the number of specialty coffee businesses increased, the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) was founded in 1982.
Led by Donald Schoenholt of Gillies Coffee in Brooklyn, New York, and Ted Lingle of California roaster Lingle Bros, the association was founded by a core of members including Waldenhauffer of Coffee, Tea and Spice in San Francisco, Peter McLaughlin of Royal Coffee, and coffee importer John Randall.

Against this backdrop, a trend began where high-quality coffee was supported by a fan base that was particular about flavor.
The term Peetniks was even coined to refer to the core fans of Peet's Coffee in Berkeley, California.
Such coffee also focuses on the origin of the beans.
Because they are particular about the origin of the beans, they do not pursue quantity over quality like commodity coffee, but rather they are particular about beans imported from specific producing areas in order to pursue high-quality beans even if the production lot is small.