Corridor coffee shops and roasters bring wave of high quality coffee to the area

With more than 60 percent of Americans drinking coffee on a daily basis according to a 2017 report from the National Coffee Assocation, it's safe to say: Americans are pretty obsessed.

The percentage has been climbing for the last several years, the report said, particularly because of enthusiasm for gourmet coffee and specialty beverages.

'The culture is changing,” said CJ Huang, owner of Cafe Muse in North Liberty. 'Just like beer culture is moving toward craft breweries, coffee is moving the same way.”

Generally, the rise of coffee is widely recognized in the industry as three 'waves.”

Coffee first became popular in the United States after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when Americans made the switch from tea to coffee in a show of patriotism. From there, coffee consumption steadily increased as people became hooked on caffeine. By the 1900s, the market for affordable, accessible and even instant coffee - i.e. Folgers and Maxwell House - had taken off and the first automatic drip coffee maker - Mr. Coffee - was invented. This era is considered the 'first wave.”

While some in the industry criticize 'first wave” coffee for its lackluster taste and quality, the movement has been recognized for popularizing coffee to the mainstream and opening the door for the 'second wave,” in which consumers craved a better quality product.

In the late 1990s, specialty coffee shops such as Starbucks began to open, offering fresh roasted beans and a wide variety of specialty drinks such as lattes, mochas, espresso and French press. Starbucks and other similar chains took off, opening thousands of locations around the country. Drinking coffee became a ritualistic social experience, leading to today, where second wave coffee - while still very popular - is beginning to lose its market foothold to 'third wave” culture. The 'third wave” celebrates the craft of coffee and its unique, complex flavors.

Similar to other culinary craft movements, consumers increasingly are becoming interested in where their coffee is sourced, how it's prepared and how it tastes. They're turning away from chain shops to small, locally-owned artisanal cafes that offer higher quality products, including traditional coffee drinks made from locally roasted, fair or direct trade, sometimes single origin beans.

Some shops are roasting their own beans in-house or have teamed up with local roasters - Brewhemia, for example, just bought Ross Street Roasting Company, based in Tama - while others are sourcing locally or from national roasters such as Intelligentsia in Chicago - one of the largest and well known direct-trade roasters in the Midwest.

'They're one of the highest regarded roasters,” Huang said, praising the company he sources his beans from for its early work in direct trade - working directly with farmers to 'cut out the middle man” and ensure the best quality beans. They also train baristas on how best to serve their coffee and espresso.

'People are becoming more aware of flavors and finding enjoyment in talking about what they're consuming,” said Katrina Anderson, community outreach and sales manager of Wake Up Iowa, a coffee roasting company based in Iowa City.

'People are broadening their horizons about what coffee can taste like,” she added.

Wake Up Iowa owner Jarret Mitchell, a Keokuk native, has been roasting beans in Iowa City since 2011. He briefly lived in San Francisco and Portland where he saw the movement take off. Foreseeing the coffee movement coming to the Midwest, Mitchell began roasting beans as 'Wake up Iowa City” and since then, has expanded throughout the state, seeing the growth of the industry here firsthand.

'It's cool to see it happening here, and it's fun to be a part of, too,” Anderson said. 'We're not just putting a product on the shelf, but educating and inviting people to talk and explore that part of their life.”

View a full list of Top Shelf winners here.

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