The Fourth Wave is Coming

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As you can read in my header. Caffenation is a 3rd wave espresso bar. For what it's worth; I can't find another term for it.

For those not knowing what I'm babbling about : 1st wave is the start of the commercial espresso machine. People go drink espresso based coffee drinks outside of their home.
2nd wave is Starbucks, or company like SB. Peet's for example in CA, Coffee Company in Holland or Jacqmotte in Belgium.
Then we have the 3rd wave were it's all about taste. The coffee bean gets a holy 'status'. We treat it with the highest care and start going single origin and single estate. Latte Art plays an important part in this movement.

Now the 4th wave...
I was wondering for years what the next wave would be like. And I think it's a bit early to yell it out to loud, but it seems that 4th wave is in the making.
This article from 'salon.com' handles about this 4th wave. Reads very well and hitting the link 'Serious Eats' makes you start to dream of a new wave rolling on the beach softly.

But that's not enough folks. 4th wave is not only about espresso; It's also about 'slow food' and the rise of the slow bar on which Barista's start brewing coffee's with the help of 'improved house hold coffee brewers' like the Chemex, the Hario filters, the Vac Pot, Aeropress and other manual and non electronic equipment.


For me that's the future of coffee and if you give me a couple of months, you're going to witness this at Hopland as well.
The biggest step forward in this movement for me is that we close the gap with the customer seriously. It asks again some craftsmanship and experience, but is way less expensive and difficult then pulling decent espresso's at home.

This is stuff I'm working on very hard at the moment.
Soon more, a whole lot more. And it doesn't matter if it's the fourth or not. It doesn't even matter if it is a wave or not ; it's the quality in the cup that matters. And the fun drinking it. And believe me ; we're drinking smashing coffee's for the moment!

Very exciting period we're in, if you ask me. Lot's of new techniques, equipment and beans. It feels a bit like we're rewriting the future of coffee right now. Very exciting indeed.

* and if the slow bar fails, you can still use your chemex for flowers.....:-)

(thanks Bradley Allen and pourdover for the inspiring flickr pics)