The Thinking Cup Blog — Third Wave Coffee

Boston is home to a plethora of coffee shops, varying from chains to artisanal, but if you’ve ever gone on the hunt for a truly phenomenal cup of coffee you know that not all coffee shops are created equal. What distinguishes the top coffee shops in Boston from the rest? Thinking Cup has put a lot of time and energy into determining what makes a top coffee shop better than the rest, striving to remain worthy of this distinction. Having continually been voted one of the top coffee shops in Boston, we’re happy to share what we think those looking...

Boston may not be referred to as “Beantown” because of the city’s love of coffee, but given its extensive and ardent relationship with a good cup of joe, perhaps it’s time things changed. Believe it or not, Boston’s relationship with coffee dates all the way back to the 1600s, when Dorothy Jones of Boston was issued the first license to sell coffee according to several sources. In fact, The Boston Tea Party was planned back in 1773 in the Green Dragon—a coffee house. As you can see, Bostonians love their coffee and as a result, most find themselves on a...

For those new to the concept of Third Wave Coffee, you may wonder what it really means. Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold said the following on this subject back in March of 2008, “The first wave of American coffee culture was probably the 19th-century surge that put Folgers on every table, and the second was the proliferation, starting in the 1960s at Peet's and moving smartly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of espresso drinks and regionally labeled coffee. We are now in the third wave of coffee connoisseur-ship, where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, roasting is about bringing out rather than incinerating the unique characteristics of each bean, and the flavor is clean and hard and pure.