Word: waves
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Coffee aficionados have been asking the question over and over again: Is Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Ore. - the most conspicuous exponent of coffee's "third wave" - the new Starbucks...
Wait, you haven't heard of the third wave? Get with the program! In cities across America, a fervid generation of caffeine evangelists are changing the way we drink coffee. They tend to be male, heavily bearded, zealous and meticulous in what they do. And the coffee they produce is as much an improvement over Starbucks and its rivals as Starbucks was over Taster's Choice. Stumptown didn't make a movement by itself. There's Intelligentsia in Chicago and Counter Culture in North Carolina, and as far back as the 1980s, some roasters, like David Dallis of Dallis Coffee...
...according to Oliver Strand of the New York Times, who has covered the third wave as well as any writer in America, "Stumptown is the leader. They're the cutting edge." The company, which recently opened a plant in Brooklyn, routinely pays more at auction for prized lots of coffee beans than anyone else, offers more single-origin coffees than anyone (20 at the New York plant) and is at the forefront of nearly every new-coffee frontier: espresso-delivery technology, international partnerships and generally changing the idea of coffee from a staple commodity, like corn or sugar, to something...
What all the third wave coffee people have in common is a thinly veiled revulsion at Starbucks and its rivals, in particular the way they overroast their beans. "Coffee beans aren't supposed to be uniformly dark and shiny," says John Moore of Dallis. "Every bean has a level it's supposed to be roasted to, so that you can taste it. Otherwise it's like cooking all meat well done...
...There aren't any third wave options when you're at the mall or the Exit 17 service plaza or your office or ... almost anywhere. In fact, the most obvious thing about Starbucks is its omnipresence. Intelligentsia sells via mail order. Counter Culture has stores, and even training centers, in Asheville, Charlotte and Durham, N.C.; Atlanta; New York City; and Washington, D.C. But there's just no way any farm-to-cup roaster can open up 60 stores, let alone 16,000-plus like Starbucks. But every town can have a café that, if it doesn...