The way Americans drink coffee is ever-changing. But right now, we’ve evolved to a place where the coffee itself may no longer be the most important part of the beverage. What happens to coffee when flavorings, syrups, and add-ins take center stage? We’ve officially entered coffee’s fourth wave.
When coffee people talk about the history of the American coffee industry, they describe periods of time in terms of “waves.” The first wave ends in the early 20th century and includes the global commodification of coffee by the West, where the beverage became an integral part of everyday life for Europeans and Americans—that takes us all the way up to Folgers, Maxwell House, and Green Mountain Coffee. The second wave was all about the big coffee shop chains that shaped the modern American idea of coffee. The normalization of espresso by companies like Starbucks, a greater consumer interest in quality and flavor, and the late 1990s/Y2K coffee house aesthetic.
With “third wave,” images of millennial-style coffee shops, men with handlebar mustaches, and an obsession with pour-over pop up into my head. The third wave, cue the 2010s, came with a greater mainstream interest in ‘specialty coffee,’ coffee origins, roast types, and various brewing methods. It gave rise to a sort of coffee snob archetype that rejects the other modern coffee archetype that emerged in the 2010s: the American coffee drinker that opts for flavored syrups, swirls, and loaded lattes. Unsurprisingly, there tends to be a gender divide between these two archetypes.
The time between waves naturally shortens when globalization and fast-moving internet trends shape culture (and coffee) at an unprecedented rate. Which is how we find ourselves so quickly in a new fourth wave.
According to the National Coffee Association, coffee consumption in the U.S. is at an all time high and outranks even bottled water consumption. They also have interesting data on the rising popularity of ‘specialty coffee,’ citing that this specific type of coffee drinking is at a 13 year high. The National Coffee Association says that specialty coffee includes any and every espresso-based drink, cold brew, nitro, frozen coffee, and ‘traditional’ coffee that is perceived as being from ‘premium’ coffee beans. By this definition, a steady climb of specialty coffee is unsurprising. Drinking drip coffee is no longer the norm. At the same time, coffee prices are supposedly going to reach record highs in the following months due to a mix of tariffs and climate disaster.
All that being said, it’s hard to avoid the strange things happening to coffee shop menus and coffee grocery aisles all over the country. The big chains, that historically both define and respond to cultural beverage trends, are pivoting to lemonade adjacent energy drinks, popping bobas, and bizarre (somewhat intriguing) flavored lattes. At coffee shops everywhere there is an option for adding alternative milks, syrups, cold foams and purees. The coffee creamer section of the grocery store is a dizzying showcase of corporate ‘innovation’ and outright gluttony: cookie butter creamer (don’t worry, it’s gluten free), Love Is Blind sponsored “wedding cake” creamer, candy bar infused creamers (but it’s vegan), Cinnabon collab creamer that supposedly has notes of cream cheese frosting, and caramel macchiato cold foam in a can, just to name a few.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a specialty latte, the occasional creamer (I’m a sucker for anything Chobani), and some sweet cream cold foam. I truly loathe those in the coffee and beverage space that look down on the consumers of these beverages. I can appreciate the way coffee-obsessed people pay lots of attention and care to the coffee they drink and the ways in which they drink it. But, this third wave sort of snobbiness quickly turns to frowning upon normal people who drink coffee for its caffeine content, or just out of habit. There’s nothing wrong with ordering a banana bread iced latte, and often, the scrutiny of sweet coffee is pinned onto women and younger coffee-drinkers that are in search of a little treat. ‘Fun’ drinks are just as important as artfully poured, single-origin cortados, but we must agree these are two different things entirely. These two things can coexist. But how did we get here?
The popularization of consuming coffee COLD gave way to a lot of the “innovations” that are shaking up the coffee industry. According to National Coffee Association data from July 2024, 45 percent of coffee drinkers ages 18 to 24 said they had a cold coffee in the past day. Iced coffee, cold brew, and lattes are the perfect blank canvas for flavorings and sweeteners, people drink them faster, and they’re more ice than (expensive) ingredients. Plus, all those add-ons make profit margins wider. Trendy alt milks, sweeteners, syrups, and cold foams each rack up upcharges that help both big chains and small, indie coffee shops stay in business.
As for the bizarre array of coffee creamers and the never-ending quest to make coffee taste like everything other than coffee, we can blame our collective obsession with maximalist flavors, corporate brand loyalty, and social media algorithms. American culture’s “flavor-maxxing” is not a phenomenon reserved solely for coffee. It’s everywhere.
It’s hard to resist products and recipes when they’re paired with clever, alluring hooks and seemingly unlimited online reproductions. After seeing video after video on my feed, I naturally become curious to make and try trendy drink recipes like a tiramisu latte or a carrot cake latte. Content creators big and small have been trained by the algorithm to ‘hook’ viewers with exciting names and beautiful opening shots, but the extravagantly labelled drinks are pretty simple. For example, a ‘Cinnamon Toast Crunch’ latte has nearly the same recipe as a ‘french toast’ latte or a ‘Teddy Graham’ latte: espresso with cinnamon, honey, and maple syrup over milk and ice. The espresso in the drink is usually the least exciting part of the recipe. This algorithmic spread of endless coffee ‘recipes’ encourages maximalist (sometimes shocking) flavors that hook viewers into watching for longer.
This is all happening as the insane rise of matcha is having its own effect on the coffee world—not to mention the immense (and terrifying) popularity of energy drinks as coffee replacements. It only makes sense that coffee products veer towards the unconventional in an effort to compete with Swedish Fish or Cherry Slush flavored caffeine juice. Even though I’m aware of this, I’m still at a loss in figuring out who is buying Coffeemate’s absolutely insane products: Creme brulee or peanut butter and jelly flavored creamer anyone?
In short, coffee’s fourth wave is defined by everything other than the coffee itself. Maximalist add-ins, flavor combinations, and iced drinks naturally gain popularity when the coffee industry attempts to appeal to younger generations. Making coffee’s flavor more accessible is a good thing. It’s up to consumers to be excited and curious about the origins and ethics of the coffee they’re drinking, much like wine. Now, this doesn’t mean that the single-origin, pour-over obsessed coffee people aren’t around — the scene is alive and well, especially in New York— it’s just not front and center like it was during the third wave. We’ll just have to wait and see what America’s coffee-drinkers take to next.
