Third Wave Coffee Series – Part 1: The Effect Your Cup Has

I’ve been serving coffee in what could be called “Third Wave Coffee” shops for almost seven years now. Third Wave coffee refers to the production and consumption of coffee in such a way that it becomes an artisanal food, like wine. Improvements are made throughout the process, from growing the coffee tree and harvesting the beans, to roasting, to making a cup of coffee or shot of espresso.

Coffee was how I managed to have any money for alcohol all through college. My personal coffee aspirations stop there, but that is not the case for many a barista.  From cuppings to brewers competitions, barista competitions from regional to national to international venues, there are numerous opportunities for coffee craftsmen to excel and showcase their talents.

These practices sound utterly bizarre to anyone in the coffee-growing regions of the world. To anyone in Ethiopia, coffee is merely a plant that grows nearby that can be stripped of its little red berries and sold for American change. In Costa Rica, coffee grows naturally but is cultivated on farms of varying sizes. The good stuff gets exported to the U.S. while Costa Ricans buy the dregs or instant coffee to make at home.

As we take in our daily caffeine, we can simultaneously reach our long American arms into the soil of third-world countries and feel as though we help them. And it’s a win-win because we get better coffee. We feel that if we are paying more for coffee, more of our money goes back to the farms. But, in fact, what we’ve done is drive a deeper wedge between the producer and his product.

Consider that a major differentiating factor for coffee as a commodity is that the coffee plant absolutely cannot grow on American soil, so we extend our reach. Any cup of coffee has taken around six steps from the farmer to our mouths, which means that any coffee referred to as “local” is locally roasted, not grown.

In this way, shopping locally can be a productive and valuable endeavor, but when we project our values onto cultures we do not know, we are essentially crossing our fingers as we blindly hand off money. This causes the producer, the farmer, to become estranged from his work because he no longer produces something that he himself can afford.

I believe that people should not have to pay for coffee. It should be like water. If anything, maybe you should pay 50 cents for a cup, but if you bring your own cup, it’s free. This opinion comes from a knowledge of the amount of waste that occurs in the foodservice industry, as well as the belief that long chains of trade where each link doubles the cost for profit is not only detrimental to both the producers and the consumers, but is fundamentally wrong.

Third Wave coffee brings with its better flavor a sense that consumers can help the farmer we don’t know. I can’t say that this is a false sense, but I would like to suggest that we think more critically about what we mean when we use the words “help” and “them.”

<About our guest blogger>  

Mia Schachter

Mia has been a barista in Los Angeles, Austin, and New York for almost six years.  She currently works at Irving Farms on the Upper West Side.