What a goofy character. He needs to acquaint himself with wikipedia….quickly.

There’s also an inherent egocentric error to the mentality that generates a notion such as a ‘Third Wave’. It’s driven primarily by internal, subjective experiences that are somewhat detatched — and decidedly so — from external reality.

For example, I’ve been reading the latest edition of Espresso Italiano Tasting as published by the Istituto Internazionale Assaggiatori Caffè. Here the science of espresso, from bean to cup, and the science of tasting it has evolved enough to form the nth edition of this guide in 2001. (The best I can compare it to anything here is to Ted Lingle’s Basics of Cupping Coffee, and even that is a weak comparison. He’s even regarded as a Second Waver for that matter.) The IIAC is also on its second generation (or should I say ‘Wave’?) of formal espresso tasting trialcards. Reading through it, I’m not so much impressed with the guide as I am at seeing the thought, experience, and standards that are behind it. Reading it, I can’t help but get the sensation that this ‘Third Wave’ in the U.S. is myopic and a bit unknowingly primitive in a number of areas. It’s as if we’re excited at the discovery of white zinfandel because we’ve previously been so accustomed to drinking generic ‘white’ wine out of a box, and meanwhile other circles that we selectively ignore are doing vertical tastings of single vineyard Montrachet.

But I am not at all surprised that this line of thinking arose, and I’m not at all surprised at who is primarily blowing its trumpet. You take young people who have been slaving away at their own professional obsessions, and suddenly they find themselves at the center of attention in media and in worldwide networks of people where they never prior had a podium … or even imagined access. I know, because I experienced this first hand years ago after working on the first Web site in the U.S. back in 1991 — when it was years before most people ever heard of the Web (it’s still the foundation for my “day job” to this day). And I can completely identify with how someone like Trish Skeie can draw parallels to what she’s experiencing and the sensation of riding a big wave on a surfboard. But I also witnessed a lot of carnage from the rightful dot-com fallout of 2000 because of a lot of hubris and insulated thinking that the old rules of business no longer applied, that all brick and mortars were dinosaurs ready for extinction, print is dead, etc. Now I’m not suggesting there’s going to be a coffee ‘crash’. But I will say that I’ve learned a lot about how revolutionary thinking can be a gross, highly subjective error when the truth really lies in evolutionary thinking.

I don’t believe in waves. It’s elitist. And isn’t it a coincidence that the suggestion of a strata to anything is usually the fabrication of an individual or group who self-selects themselves at the most evolved end? So no waves in my coffee, thanks. In my book, we’re just at a point in time along the continued pursuit of better coffee.

Now why people like Trish and Nick Cho speak of ‘Third Wave’ not as if it’s just an idea but a present and unquestionable reality is another subject entirely. But to any coming-of-age teenager who feels as if they’re the first to discover adolescence, even if adolescence has evolved over generations, it’s hard to fathom the possibility of other realities.

“Third Wave” does no more disrespect to previous paradigms of coffee than Classical music does to Baroque. If there’s disrespect apparent out there, it’s from the individual… not tied to the concept of third wave.

Whatever. This semantics b.s. is tiresome. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.