A rifle carried into the Civil War had a coffee grinder built into the stock.

0:00 Steven It takes place in Boston. It's George Howell who started that. Who created the Frappuccino? But he. He got all the credit. He got the paycheck, most importantly. And he sold the Frappuccino to Starbucks. So that changed it and turned it into something very different.

0:16 Eva This is, you know, too much.

0:19 Pamala So I, I have something to admit before we get into this. This episode.

0:26 Pamala Okay. I'm nervous.

0:42 Eva We're fucked.

0:45 Pamala Oh my gosh. Stevie! Little demons. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

0:51 Eva All right. Happy to have you here.

0:52 Pamala Yeah. So what is it that you know too much about? Tell us what you know too much about.

0:58 Steven I know too much about the third wave of coffee, specifically in New York City. Do you guys want to hear the waves? There's ways.

1:08 Pamala I was like, there's waves. There's like, yeah.

1:11 Eva We're in the third one.

1:13 Steven We might even be in the fifth one.

1:15 Pamala Shit, I'm very far behind. I'm going to have to get this education right now. Yeah.

1:21 Eva Let's go.

1:22 Steven Everybody agrees. Almost everybody agrees that there are at least three waves. Right? A lot of that still exists. You know, you can go to the supermarket and get your brick of pre-ground, Maxwell House or Bustillo or whatever it is.

1:40 Steven And then.

1:43 Steven Things progressed. We started drinking coffee outside of our houses. And this is sort of the birth of the second wave. And it was more about this sort of experience. Right. Like that sort of coffeehouse experience.

1:56 Eva And the ritual of it.

1:57 Steven Right. The ritual. And you think of like the like the sort of birth of the third place, or hippie coffee shops with comfy couches and books to read.

2:07 Eva Up on the floor.

2:09 Steven Exactly. Also, the introduction of drink names like cappuccino and latte. Like they they then sort of work into the sort of like, you know, the coffee menu or the coffee experience that later comes in the third wave of coffee. Where we start to evaluate, you know, we start to taste coffees at the origin of, of where they're being harvested and scoring them and finding this like score the same way.

2:37 Steven You know this is very parallel to the way sort of like wine is evaluated scoring it on a scale of like one to to 100. I always draw the parallel to, to sort of like tomatoes. Right. Like we are all so excited about like a farmer's market salad and knowing like, oh, I got these Long Island tomatoes. They're delicious.

2:55 Steven And coffee really is the only industry I know of where it just keeps following that supply chain to the seed. And they're like, hey, listen. Like not only do I like, you know, this Ethiopian coffee, but I like it from this region and this farm. And I really just want this plant varietal and it delivers all the way to the cup, the birthplace of this or this, sort of like where this starts to change is 2001 New York City.

3:26 Steven You know,

3:28 Eva What happened?

3:29 Steven Yeah. We you start to that's where cafes start to take coffee really seriously.

3:35 Eva Okay.

3:37 Steven From 2001 to 2009, was this sort of like, very bracketed timeframe where coffee had not yet gone to this, like, sort of omnipresent state that it's in now where we can go into, like any neighborhood, and every block is going to have three or 4 or 5 options to get like a specialty coffee experience. But back in those days, like you, you could get first or second wave coffee in the places where, you know, a New Yorker would expect to get a coffee, which was a diner or coffee cart or, you know, there were obviously, a couple Starbucks at that point.

4:15 Steven It takes place in Boston. It's George Howell who started that, who created the Frappuccino, but he he got all the credit. He got the paycheck, most importantly. And he sold the Frappuccino to Starbucks, who then changed it and turned it into something very different.

4:32 Eva Where is the the blank street of it all? Like, are they just. Are they like, the hell Pit fourth wave of coffee, or are they just like the darker side of the third wave, or are they less evil than I think they are? But I see what feels like millions of them.

4:54 Steven Yeah.

4:54 Eva On the street. And I know their product cannot be as good as the five surrounding mom and pops. Well, but I'm just curious.

5:06 Steven Your perspective in 2010 and early 2010, Blue Bottle Coffee opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

5:19 Pamala And I remember yeah, I remember that.

5:22 Steven From 2001 to 2009. All of these third wave cafes were locally owned, right? And you had, the you had Joe Coffee, which is still around. You had Jimmy Coffee, which has moved out of the boroughs, but went back to Ithaca. So they're New York State. Grumpy.

5:45 Eva Coffee, great logo.

5:46 Eva So good.

5:48 Steven That's a great logo. When I opened, I was the last of that sort of chapter. Right. So I get to be the last the last guy at the party. And that was in 2009. That was August of 2009. And then early 2010 Blue Bottle opened and they had a brown craft paper logo. So despite the fact that come to New York with Google's money, the craft paper threw everybody off.

6:18 Steven And everybody who went to to Blue Bottle at that time was like, oh.

6:23 Eva Is.

6:24 Steven This? Absolutely. But we all knew better, like those of us in the industry knew better. You know, that really, I think, signifies the end of the third wave. I will forever remember that time. Because people would walk into coffee shops which sold nothing but coffee, and they would come from you know, across the borough or across whatever, and walk into coffee shops and just say, like, do you, do you have coffee?

6:50 Steven I heard you have coffee. And it's like, like, what a crazy thing. But of course, like they were looking for this very specific like, you know, this, this sort of, like expertly prepared beverage and not this commodity thing that they could have gotten, you know, the next chapter, which everybody agrees on, certainly is when things start getting built to scale.

7:11 Steven Right. And that is then, you know, that fourth or fifth wave that we're talking about, and that's where Blank Street comes in, is at no point do you look at one Blank Street store and and feel like, oh, this is this is it, this is this like mom and pop business with this, like, craft paper, these hand printed cups or whatever it is?

7:31 Steven It's like, oh, this is built for speed. This is built to exist in every neighborhood or on every corner. It's most fun that that everything is sort of here at the same time.

7:43 Eva Yeah. Well, as long as there's room for both.

7:48 Pamala I think I was always going to say, what do you think the sixth wave is? Robots.

7:54 Steven Exactly.

7:56 Eva How did coffee begin its flow through your bloodstream. And so about.

8:02 Steven You know, I think what hooked me originally was that I was never a regular anywhere. Right? It's not like I could go to my local and get a beer and sit down and have a place to hang out. And coffee was the first time that, and I didn't start drinking coffee into my 20s until I was in my 20s, which is a funny thing.

8:23 Eva Unique.

8:24 Pamala Yeah.

8:26 Steven But that was the first time where I would start to walk into places and people would be like, oh, like Steven. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I get it. Like, this is, you know, and that plays back into that sort of third place of like, you're running around the city, you're working, you're you're not you're not going to be home for another 12 hours.

8:43 Steven But you have this moment where people are going to, you know, remember your name. You can sit down.

8:48 Eva You're you're what's it that you're because you're. Cheers.

8:51 Steven Yeah. Total cheers. Yeah.

8:55 Eva It's beautiful.

8:56 Steven It's all downhill from there.

8:58 Pamala Yeah. So. And then you decide to open a coffee shop because you were into this?

9:02 Steven Yeah. Yeah. You know, because coffee is so pervasive at this point and, like, it's so available. It's it's expensive. It's not as expensive as it should be. Right. Like, it's.

9:19 Eva Really.

9:20 Steven Like you.

9:21 Eva Say that again.

9:21 Pamala So expensive.

9:23 Eva So please. Like, why should it be more expensive.

9:26 Steven When you look at all of the people involved in the process and how underpaid, you know, this sort of like producers are and, and like it, it's really something that warrants a higher price at origin to, to better pay farmers, to better pay farm workers. You know, and that the parallel again is wine is like it's not crazy to at this point you're, you're paying $18 for a glass of wine and it's still less than $5 for, for, like a mug of coffee and that like somewhere in the middle I think is is correct.

10:05 Steven Right.

10:07 Eva Maybe that's going to have to be like the eighth wave.

10:09 Steven Geez. It's not just that like, oh, it's expensive. Here's your $10 coffee. It's like, right. But then it's sort of like back on the coffee industry to focus and prepare things well and make sure that that $10 coffee tastes like a $10 coffee. Right? Yeah. And what I won't drink is this sort of like middle ground of thoughtless coffees.

10:33 Steven So if it's a matter of me going to the local deli and spending $2 on a sort of like first wave cup of of coffee that's been sitting around for a few hours, I love that, you know, I'm totally happy with that. So if it's a matter of going somewhere to get a that $10 or whatever it is, like single origin, you know, single varietals washed like Colombian, I'm there for that.

11:06 Steven But if it's something that is expensive that nobody has cared about, that's been made on dirty equipment by somebody who doesn't have the time to smile or interact with you as, as like the third wave experience sort of sent over that. It's like we're all in this together. I don't want that. And will sort of default to a Celsius at this at this point in the summer, and would rather just go grab some caffeine somewhere.

11:34 Steven And there you go. Hospitality and coffee have always had this like tough relationship. You know, I always, you know, I always felt that coffee could be a more sort of like welcoming environment for everybody. And there are times that cafes are that way for people. You know, you are treated as as a customer who's only interested in convenience.

11:59 Steven And that's like, I don't think that's the way forward.

12:03 Pamala Okay. Interesting. If something's in the coffee and they don't know where to start, what would you suggest? Like how do they go down this rabbit hole with you? How do they get there? Get there. Yeah.

12:14 Steven Everybody, I think, starts drinking coffee with milk and sugar and then I think the progression is less sugar, less milk, less sugar, less milk until you end up at black coffee. Right.

12:25 Eva Or espresso.

12:26 Steven Or. It is also argued that espresso as a beverage is a distraction.

12:31 Pamala You're not getting the full experience if.

12:33 Steven It doesn't have your. You have two variables. The product itself, whether or not that is like a really well grown, well processed, well roasted coffee, and then you're meeting the sort of hand of the barista who may or may not be care. Great job. Yeah. Or care, etc.. So really filter coffee. And filter coffee is is is my favorite.

12:56 Steven So if I'm telling somebody to go down this, this sort of rabbit hole, I think find the find your, your path of least resistance. Like if you're always going to be a latte person there, you know, there's going to be a different path for you.

13:17 Pamala Well, thank you for taking us down this rabbit hole. I think that's, a really nice way to sort of wrap up our conversation today. Stephen. Thank you so much.

13:28 Steven Thanks for having me.

13:30 Eva Well, I think that's it for today's episode of You Know Too Much. Thank you so much to Stephen. And now we all know way too much about coffee shops. The third wave. The eighth wave. All of it. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. Leave us a glowing review. Five stars only. Share this with someone who would love it.

13:51 Eva You can explore more episodes behind the scenes content. You know too much media. Follow us where ever you get our podcasts to keep the obsession going. Thank you so much, Stephen.

14:03 Steven Thank you guys. So good to hang out.

14:05 Pamala Best part of waking up is the lectures in your home. I wish that the best jingles take it off. You always had the best jingles.