COFFEE

The Journey

Throughout the nineteenth century, most American homemakers purchased freshly roasted coffee. Grocers often roasted their own, and most towns and cities of any size were home to one or more coffee roasteries.

In the first half of the twentieth century, however, coffee, like other foodstuffs, fell victim to the industrialization of the food supply. Consolidation. Technological innovation. Standardization. They all led to one outcome: heavily advertised national brands of coffee sold in supermarkets in vacuum-sealed cans. And after WWII came the lowest blow of them all: water-soluble instant coffee.
By the time instant became the next new thing, American consumers were so acclimatized to bad coffee that they failed to notice the introduction of lower-quality beans from their far less expensive species called Robusta that price-conscious mass marketers had begun adding to their blends. With this —and more– in mind, a new wave of coffee lovers was born.

What we now know as "Specialty Coffee" was a whole movement to bring back high-quality coffee and to create consciousness about the production, from bean to cup.