Interesting CNBC article from this summer (h/t to my friend Karen) of the birth and growth of Blue Bottle Coffee. There’s also a lot of good stuff on the development of coffee’s third wave.
Here’s the video version:
This quote gives me all the feels:
….he felt that most retail coffee chains over-roasted their beans.
I’ve got to say that the argument over the $5 cup of coffee seems a bit ridiculous. At heart of that discussion is a false equivalence between a drip coffee in a big pot made on a Bunn machine with commodity grounds in a business where coffee is an add-on product, to pour-overs and espresso beverages made in a specialty shop from freshly roasted, quality coffee. If people want to pay for it, fine. If they don’t, no one forces them to. There don’t seem to be similar arguments when it comes to niches like craft beer, not sure why coffee gets targeted this way and no, I am not sensitive about this at all but thanks for asking.