Three waves of coffee worldwide
Globally, the three waves of coffee development are closely related to changes in people's consumption behavior. The first wave of coffee continued from the 19th century to the end of the last century. People sacrificed the taste and quality of coffee in exchange for the large-scale popularization of coffee products. Instant coffee and canned coffee are both products of this period.
The second wave of coffee is more like a reflection on the first wave of coffee. People are beginning to care about where the coffee comes from and how to roast it. Drinking coffee has become a comprehensive experience including understanding the story of the coffee itself and socializing. People no longer understand "drinking coffee together" as really just buying a drink. Brands such as Starbucks are representative brands of this period.
The term "third wave of coffee" was first proposed and was an article written in 2002 by Trish Rothgeb, co-founder of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, a coffee shop in San Francisco.
The third wave of coffee emphasizes more on the coffee product itself - people buy coffee, based on their origin and production methods, the product transcends the experience and becomes the core element that consumers pay the most attention to. Intelligentsia Coffee Tea in Chicago, USA, Counter Culture Coffee in , , North Carolina, and Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland, these three coffee shops are called the three representative cafes when the waves were on the rise. They all attach great importance to product quality, direct transactions with origin, and sustainable commercial development. At the same time, they also believe that consumer education plays a very important role in reshaping the entire industry.
China's unique coffee experience
Recalling our experience, the time interval between the three coffee waves in China is shorter, and the time for intermingling is longer. In just 30 or 40 years, it seems that the influence of the first coffee wave has not faded, and the second coffee wave has begun rapidly with the arrival and competition of brands such as Starbucks. In recent years, with the change in the global coffee consumption trend, China has gradually begun to appear coffee shops affected by the third coffee wave.
In China, this development is not linear, but different consumption stratifications have emerged under different needs - people actively or passively choose their own recognized coffee products driven by different regions and different concepts. Around you, there may be friends who are used to buying long-term instant coffee in supermarkets, and it is also easy to find coffee shops who occupy the city's corners of the cafe and enjoy the coffee space. Change the alley, where there may be coffee lovers who like to explore the taste of hand-brewed coffee and fine coffee.
This is also a unique coffee experience in China. But we want to talk about Japan, a country that has experienced three waves of coffee, has been influenced by both the Western coffee wave and in turn influenced those who created the wave. Because of this, too many coffee-related marks have been left in the streets of Japan, allowing this land to find both old time and space for the new wave.
Original coffee is no different from traditional Chinese medicine for the Japanese
When the Dutch first set foot on this land in the 17th century, the most common drink in Japanese life was wheat tea. In the package brought to Japan by the Dutch, besides the Bible, glass products and velvet, there must be a pack of coffee. It is said that this is the first time coffee has landed in Japan.
In people's perception at that time, this bitter and dark drink seemed to be no different from traditional Chinese medicine. It is said that because coffee beans are rich in vitamins, it cured the edema of the Japanese - Tokugawa Shogunate used coffee beans as medicinal items and distributed them to samurai who were sick because they could not eat enough vegetables when fighting on the front line.
In fact, it was already the Meiji era when ordinary people were able to understand what coffee was (1868 to 1912). At that time, Japan was actively leaving Asia and entering Europe, and people imitated European lifestyles: social dance, red wine steak, and of course, coffee drinks. After the opening of the coffee bean trade, traditional Japanese tea houses selling tea also began to sell coffee since the 1870s.In 1888, a store called "Kebu Teahouse" opened in Ueno, Tokyo. This was the first coffee shop in Japan and the prototype of a Japanese cafe later. In addition to selling coffee, the two-story villa also prepares Go and poker for visitors, as well as paper, inkstones, inkstones, pens, newspapers and books. It is more like a social place for exchanges than a place of food and drink.
After this, a cafe called Café Printemps opened a store on Ginza . In addition to the first floor space, you can use the membership space on the second floor, where you will have the opportunity to meet the writer Mori Ouwai , Tanizaki Junichiro , painter Kuroda Kiyoshi, Kabuki performer Ichikawa Zuotuan, and other cultural celebrities. These comic small portraits and poems that frequent customers doodle in the store have become the symbol of this cafe. This cafe also appeared in the work of "The Sun Cheng of the Heartbreak Pavilion" by the writer Hefeng Nagai.
The first wave of coffee in Japan: Instant coffee, canned coffee
During World War II, coffee with refreshing and debilitating effects became military supplies of the US military; when the war ended, commercialized coffee entered Japan again, leading the first wave of coffee in Japan.
People are arguing about the specific time of this wave. Some people believe that the first wave has begun since the free import of coffee beans in 1960. Some people also believe that the prosperity of coffee shops in Japan in the second half of the 1980s really marked the beginning of the coffee wave. But there is no doubt that the good days of coffee have come, and it has begun to become something that millions of ordinary Japanese need.
Instant coffee is the darling of this era. Hot water brewing is simple and convenient, and does not require complicated technology or hardware, and you can enjoy it at home. Instant coffee has entered Japanese families, and Nestlé coffee is popular in Japan. There is still a collection of old Nestlé Coffee ads on YouTube. "I liked this advertisement the most when I was a child." "This advertisement always made me think that coffee must be particularly delicious when I was a child" - you can see a lot of such comments. However, in fact, the instant coffee after simple, crude, over-extracted tastes not so good after brewing. After drinking a cup, the aftertaste is often sour and bitter, and not so satisfactory.
canned coffee meets people's needs for coffee to drink when they go out, and it is developing in Japan at this time. Especially after the Japanese coffee brand " Shangjiu Coffee " (which is not a company with the Chinese coffee chain) launched white coffee in 1969, the sales of canned coffee rose sharply - the milky taste concealed the bitterness of the coffee after excessive extraction, making the taste thick and smooth. It is more accurate to say that it is a "coffee drink" than to say it is coffee.
By 1990, canned coffee sales reached one-quarter of the Japanese beverage market. Now, canned coffee is generally 200 ml, and the price is about 100 to 150 yen (about 6 to 9 yuan), and can be purchased at vending machines everywhere.
The development of coffee shops is also out of control. At its peak, in 1982, there were nearly 162,000 coffee shops in Japan, and they were also the main consumers of raw coffee beans. Among these coffee shops, there are many independent cafés. People can visit similar coffee shops and drink different flavors than instant coffee.
19th century siphon extraction method was first used by the British in coffee making, but it was not until the 20th century that it was promoted by the Japanese. As early as 1925, the Japanese had their own domestic siphon pot manufacturer. In addition to siphon, the use of filter paper to make drip coffee is also widely used by independent coffee shops and coffee enthusiasts. Compared to the uniform and standardized taste of instant coffee, Japanese people prefer this "freedom beyond precision" and are obsessed with the taste of coffee beans themselves.
The second wave of coffee in Japan: fast food chain coffee shop
1987, Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle, USA, and in just a few years it has made its business all over the world. This is the spring of espresso. The deep roasted coffee beans are grinded to extremely fine, and when they meet high-pressure steam in the coffee machine, they can become a cup of mellow black coffee.This brewing method is efficient. After a simple operation of a machine, you can quickly hand over a cup of coffee to the customer. Starbucks has launched a large number of chain stores and global procurement, and then distributed the unified deep roasted Arabica coffee beans to various places, which can further reduce costs. These features are very suitable for the fast food chain Starbucks.
Photo丨Fabian Ong
Starbucks adds different elements to the thick espresso, becoming a variety of fancy coffees such as mocha and latte. These drinks are all loved by consumers.
Seattle-style coffees like Starbucks have also been launched in Japan one after another. In 1996, Starbucks opened its first branch in Ginza, Tokyo. The following year, Tully's Coffee also opened its first store in Ginza. In 1999, Seattle's Best Coffee opened its first store in Osaka North District. Since this period, the total number of local coffee shops in Japan has dropped sharply, shrinking to 94,000 in 1999, and then slowly declined to only 70,000 in 2012, about half of the number of coffee shops at its peak. There is no doubt that the fast food chain cafe has brought a significant impact on Japanese coffee.
Of course, Japan is not without its own chain of coffee. The old-fashioned Uejima Coffee is committed to making coffee with a siphon pot and has a group of loyal fans. There is also DOUTOR COFFEE, which opened its first store in 1980, which grew to the top Japanese coffee chain sales in 10 years. But after Starbucks landed in Japan, it was quickly overtaken by this "outsider".
Around 2000, Nestlé's fully automatic espresso machine was launched, which facilitates the production of coffee, but it also seems to be announcing: baristas are not that important. There are also a group of unemployed baristas who are unwilling to compromise with machines and devote themselves to developing hand-brewed coffee, grasping the characteristics and fine steps of various coffee beans, and advocating a more refined coffee aesthetic.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America, established in 1982, has also continuously promoted the concept of "fine coffee". They set up a system to define coffee beans with a score of 80 or above (out of 100) as "fine coffee". This practice has deeply influenced the coffee culture.
Han Huaizong, a cultural figure in Taiwan’s coffee industry, called 2003 the first year of American fine coffee in his "Boutique Coffee Studies". Those baristas reduce the roasting of coffee beans, oppose the Italian-style concentrated deep roasting method in the second coffee wave, and advocate "teaching according to the characteristics of beans from different origins" and extract different flavors of coffee beans themselves in various places: fruit acid, floral fragrance, etc. Emphasize the importance of people in the process of making coffee and strive to restore the taste of coffee itself.
This coffee shop, which uses coffee making techniques as its selling point, has promoted the third wave of coffee. In these "craftsmanship" coffee shops, a barista brews coffee for you. Where the coffee beans come from, what roasting method, what taste you prefer, and how much moisture you have, all become the key to a cup of coffee’s deliciousness.
The third wave of coffee in Japan: coffee has become a way of life
If you study the third wave of coffee that is emerging in the United States or the United Kingdom, it is not difficult to find that practical functions such as boosting spirits have gradually been separated from the word coffee. People refine the steps of brewing coffee like wine, and experience the subtle differences brought about by various operations.
Coffee has permeated people's lives. It represents various attitudes to life in a way that everyone likes.
Cafe not only becomes a social place for drinking coffee, but also a way of life - enjoying the professional services brought by baristas, appreciating the unique decoration style of the cafe, and even liking the specific flavor of a certain coffee.
In Japan, since the first time of coffee shops, coffee itself has a strong Western cultural imprint, which makes coffee have the effect of cultural dissemination when it enters Japan. This mission, coupled with the local tea and rest culture in Japan, has interpreted various forms in the evolution of Japanese coffee shops.In the 1950s, there were Chanson cafes and jazz cafes that sing or play songs - you should know that jazz is more common in bars in Europe and the United States; in 1970, the first "comic tea shop" was born in Nagoya; in 1978, there was even a curious "no shorts" cafe in Kyoto. In these coffee shops, the function of drinking coffee is weakened, and the quality of coffee itself becomes less important. People are either for curiosity or for entertainment, not just for coffee. This integration makes coffee culture suitable for the masses and accumulates a deep mass base in Japan.
On the other hand, the Japanese have never abandoned their pursuit of coffee flavors. The tedious brewing process actually adds to the sense of ritual. This coffee culture that respects coffee taste and diversified has long been rooted in Japanese lives. Nikkei News writer Emiko Mizuko once commented: It is not so much that this is the "third wave of coffee", but rather that it is "the nostalgia of returning to the Showa era (1926-1989).
, a store from Oakland, a West Coast city in the United States, celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2017. It entered Japan in 2015. The first store was located in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, Tokyo, and renovated a small Japanese-style old factory with a dazzling blue bottle logo printed on the white wall on the outside. On the first day of opening, many loyal fans came here and needed to queue for four or five hours to have a cup of coffee.
advocates the taste of coffee products themselves - this third wave of coffee has finally arrived in the East, and there are also many local craft coffee shops in Japan. Founded in 2011, Hikari Coffee’s first store was located in Tokyo Ebisu, an area that emphasizes exquisite living. Since then, stores have been opened in the fashion places such as Shibuya , Shinjuku, Omotesando, etc., and so far there are 7 chain stores in Tokyo. In addition to enjoying daily selection of handmade coffees, single-catered coffees and classic Italian espresso, you can also buy your own roasted coffee beans and coffee surroundings in the store or online store.
Photo丨Fabian Ong
Craft-type coffee has become popular, which also provides opportunities for old stores that have suffered setbacks in the wave of coffee shops and are turning to retail. Founded in 1933, Tianday Coffee was originally a syrup shop. During the coffee shop boom in the 1970s, they served coffee beans to many coffee shops, which were also quite smooth at first, but when the coffee shops closed one after another, they had to turn to mass retail. After that, the third-generation president Kazuhiro Tada took over. His personal preferences were from coffee beans with unique characteristics in different origins. He was also an international examiner of the "Cup of Excellence" (the Cup of Excellence, initiated and organized by SCAA, and selected good coffees that meet the standards worldwide every year). Tiandai Coffee has sold high-end coffee beans since 1997 and has opened an online shopping channel since 1999. In Osaka stores, there is also a barista who won the coffee competition held by the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ) to make coffee for guests.
Photo丨Fabian Ong
There are also many personalized stores that perform well. For example, in Tokyo Chuo District, Nihonbashi - the geographical center of Tokyo, there is a coffee shop called Mighty step scoffee stop. The store opened in 2014 and has renovated an old house with a construction age of 60 years. It has a small store with only 10 seats. The owner provides 9 fruit-flavored hand-brewed coffees with shallow roasting.
Win-win for hand-brewed coffee shops and convenience store coffee
Interestingly, in Japan, the craze about coffee began to polarize. The hand-brewed coffee shops are fighting fiercely, and the competition for convenience store coffee to meet people's "fast and efficient" needs is becoming increasingly fierce. The first convenience store to introduce coffee in Japan was Circle K Sunkus. In 2011, the company introduced self-service coffee vending machines in 3,500 convenience stores. In 2013, 4,300 stores under Rosen and 5,000 stores under Quanjia were also "imported".
, Japan's largest convenience store chain 7-ELEVEn, developed its own self-service coffee vending machine in 2013, and participated in the battle at the lowest price of 100 yen (about 6 yuan), quickly occupying most of the market share.According to the company, since the use of self-service coffee vending machines in 2013, 7-ELEVEn has sold 2 billion cups of coffee as of February 2016.
These convenience stores also have a lot of thought: for example, most of the beans in 7-ELEVEn come from Brazil and Guatemala, while roasting is in cooperation with Uchidao coffee; each cup is extracted through filter paper, with moderate sourness and strong fragrance. But just like not every "wave" convinces everyone, convenience store coffee meets people's consumption needs in different scenarios from another perspective, and also reflects people's increasing emphasis on coffee flavors.
The reputation of good hand-brewed coffee shops is crossing borders. Fuglen, an old coffee shop originating in Oslo, Norway, opened their first overseas store in Shibuya, Tokyo. Initially, residents living in the surrounding community, Yoyoki Uehara, like to sit in the store. They can even bring the convenience store's lunch box in and chat with the clerk while eating. But now they may find it difficult to find seats in the store. Overseas tourists who follow the map with travel guides often line up outside the door to discuss and plan their next city itinerary with friends.
This may not be a good thing or a bad thing. With the market, more craftsmanship and boutique coffee shops will wait for an opportunity to appear. They have nothing to be afraid of yet - customers of the third wave of coffee are paying attention to the product itself, and more and more consumers who have received coffee education and clear needs will come to you.
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