No More Bitter Coffee, You Can Become a Caffelier!
Maybe, by the time you read this post, you’ve already asked for your regular coffee order or you’ve prepared yourself a cup at home with one or more teaspoons of sugar and added a little bit of warm milk…
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. While we drink this coffee we ignore that there is a better choice. We are unaware that today it is possible to drink high quality coffee, to know the origin, process and roast of said coffee. It’s “the new wave” in which coffee lovers have more knowledge and more options.
If you want to leave the bitter coffee behind and taste something better, we encourage you to join the third coffee wave and become a caffelier, a lover and connoisseur of coffee.
Be aware, the process will be long but exciting. Are you ready?
Learning about the past
Since coffee was discovered and its expansion started, the first coffee wave began, spreading from Africa to the Middle East and from there to Europe. Only powerful people had the privilege to drink coffee.
The majority of us are swimming in the second coffee wave. Thanks to it coffee became more popular and came to our homes in multiple forms (ground, whole bean, instant); coffee shops with affordable prices opened and the espresso machines came from Italy to the rest of the world.
But in that process of democratization the quality of coffee suffered, because more money was made for quantity than for quality. Coffee lots with many defects were commercialized just to be able to meet the demand, and to cover those defects the dark roast prevailed.
The market challenges and the consumer trends gave way to the third coffee wave. In this third stage the origin and quality are the main characters. Traceable coffee makes its way, the one that reveals its flavor profile depending on its origin and process. Coffee is not bitter and it has a lot more to offer!
We also learn that coffee has its own quality scale. There is the commercial coffee (that we all know well) and the specialty coffee.
Expert coffee tasters are in charge of finding and classifying its complexity, the more complex a coffee is the bigger qualification and quality it will have.
Jump in the Third Coffee Wave
The new coffee consumer is not only an addict that needs caffeine to wake up every morning or that uses coffee as an excuse to get together with friends (both things still valid), but is now a good coffee lover, someone who does not conform with a simple cup of coffee.
To become a third wave consumer (and with time, a caffelier), the most important thing is to be able to absorb information. We need to know about origins, to understand the difference between a coffee from Africa and one from America. That is not the same a coffee arabica than a robusta, that a medium roast is much better than a dark roast and that a good coffee is actually brown colored and not black, and it does not need any flavor additives.
One way to obtain all this information is through the baristas, crucial characters in this third wave, who are being well trained, they know the coffee they are using, its origin, flavors and the best way to prepare it.
Another source of information are the websites and magazines that talk about coffee. Some might be too specialized for beginners but others, like us, have the vision to bring the world of specialty coffee to all the coffee enthusiasts.