For those new to the idea of Third Wave Coffee, you may ponder what it truly implies. Pulitzer Prize-winning food pundit Jonathan Gold said the following regarding this topic back in March of 2008, "The first wave of American coffee culture was most likely the nineteenth century surge that put Folgers on every single table, and the second was the proliferation, beginning in the 1960s at Peet's and moving rapidly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of coffee drinks and regionally labeled coffee. We are presently in the third wave of coffee connoisseur-ship, where beans are sourced from farms rather than countries, roasting is about bringing out instead of incinerating the unique qualities of each bean, and the flavor is perfect and hard and pure."
Basically, the thought that our understanding, appreciation, and ability to source coffee has advanced through several evolutions. Experiencing the first wave of coffee for the first period, enabled the spread of coffee all over the world most especially in the freeze-dried variety popular back in post-World War II America. The following period, the second wave of coffee, is characterized mostly through chains, for example, Starbucks, which mass-marketed higher quality of Arabica coffee and specialty drinks. Patrons of chains, such as this could locate the regions from which some of their beans were grown and had a larger variety than previously available in terms of roasts. The present time we are in has been named the third wave and thus its coffee, Third Wave Coffee.