Specialty coffee, with its focus on quality and authenticity, is a curious fit in our fast-paced world. While it shares similarities with the slow food movement, its emphasis on small batches, precise preparation, and ritualistic experience clashes with modern economies’ obsession with speed and scale.
In countries like the United States, this contradiction is particularly evident. The cultural fixation on efficiency – bigger cups, faster service, exponential growth – runs counter to specialty coffee’s ethos. Starbucks’ 4-minute drink preparation rule stands in stark contrast to third wave coffee’s original dedication to craft, intentionality, and precision.
Brands like Blue Bottle and Intelligentsia built their reputations on these values, but under corporate parents, their national and international expansions have required replicable systems. Preparation risks becoming formulaic, and specialty coffee, once defined by resistance to scale, begins to resemble a marketing exercise more than a lived practice.
Contrast this with cultural environments where slowness is embedded in everyday rhythms. In France, August is sacrosanct: the bistro terraces are full not because efficiency is maximised but because leisure is protected. In Greece, coffee is consumed as ritual, not fuel, woven into a pattern of daily life that prizes quality without rushing.
This makes specialty coffee feel less like an indulgence and more like a natural extension of cultural priorities.
When cafés are understood as public goods – subsidized by norms or policy – the economic pressure to squeeze each customer for maximum turnover diminishes. This makes specialty coffee feel less like an indulgence and more like a natural extension of cultural priorities. Although the third wave was a slow bloom across Europe, it appears to be taking root with strong foundations cemented by shared values.
In the US, price and convenience remain paramount. The boom in drive-thru coffee and the “dashboard dining” trend underscore how inflation has pushed consumers to favour speed and affordability over ritual or quality. Specialty coffee thus flourishes in settings where cultural patience aligns with its economics – and strains where volume is king.
Yet paradoxically, it was in America that specialty coffee first became an industry. In Coffee and Tea: Perceptions and Illusions, Ian Bersten credits Donald Schoenholt of Gillies 1840 as a pioneer of specialty coffee. Schoenholt denounced the Robusta-heavy blends of big roasters as the cause of America’s declining coffee quality and consumption, launching a campaign through trade magazines.
In 1981, World Coffee & Tea featured specialty coffee on its cover, marking a turning point for the movement. Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Starbucks in the 1970s and 1980s helped rebrand coffee from diner basic into aspirational culture, and the third-wave roasters of the 2000s – Intelligentsia, Stumptown, Counter Culture – turned single-origin beans into status symbols.
“What really drove the expansion of specialty coffee was the rise of espresso beverages,” says Jonathan Morris, Director of Research at the University of Hertfordshire.
Why did specialty thrive in a country so obsessed with efficiency? “What really drove the expansion of specialty coffee was the rise of espresso beverages,” says Jonathan Morris, Director of Research at the University of Hertfordshire. “But just as important was creating spaces where people wanted to spend time drinking them.”
Part of the answer also lies in marketing. Specialty coffee in the US often functions less as slow ritual and more as cultural signal: authenticity packaged for quick consumption. The third wave movement allows consumers to participate in the aura of craftsmanship even if the drink was prepared in haste. The product, in effect, is not just the coffee but the story – ethical sourcing, exotic origin or flavors, latte art – that can be consumed as quickly as the beverage itself.
Another factor is wealth. The US middle class has long been conditioned to pay premiums for lifestyle markers, from organic food to boutique fitness. Specialty coffee slotted into this pattern, becoming one more token of taste and distinction. Now, as they struggle with inflation, American consumers are rethinking their spending habits.
The challenge for specialty coffee is not only cultural but structural. Small roasteries or coffee shops cannot promise exponential growth without diluting their identity. Scaling inevitably leads to some compromises – whether on quality, personal connection, risk-taking, or agility. In cafés, preparation takes time, equipment costs are high, and customers must be willing to pay more and wait longer.
“The specialty coffee movement has shifted,” says Morris.
In an industry where margins are thin and consumer budgets fragile, this model is precarious. “The specialty coffee movement has shifted,” says Morris. “Today, people are drawn to independent spaces that suit their personality – those places are hard to scale or automate.”
In cultures less obsessed with scale, specialty may find firmer footing. The “slow” economies of southern Europe, for example, integrate coffee into broader values of leisure, locality, and quality. Specialty cafés can root themselves in these rhythms without apology. In France, growth is typically steady and intentional, grounded in work–life balance and social protections, with ambition channelled into quality and community rather than fast-paced expansion.
The larger question is whether specialty coffee can survive in a global market that prizes speed. If specialty compromises on slowness, it risks becoming indistinguishable from mass-market coffee – another tier of branding rather than a distinct practice. In Romania, where specialty coffee has bloomed in recent years, some say too much scaling has caused quality to erode. Yet there is also opportunity.
As consumers grow weary of overstimulation and seek “authentic” experiences, slow rituals gain appeal. “Do you think those historic coffee houses – the Middle Eastern cafés, the European salons, the Viennese traditions – were really selling coffee?” says Morris. “They were selling time and an experience.”
The risk is that it will be absorbed back into the very system it resists, marketed as an “experience” but delivered in a way that is quick and mainstreamed.
Specialty coffee – or any coffee consumed intentionally – can position itself as the antithesis of efficiency culture. The risk is that it will be absorbed back into the very system it resists, marketed as an “experience” but delivered in a way that is quick and mainstreamed. The staying power of specialty coffee may depend less on marketing and gimmicks than on cultural settings that allow it to breathe.
In economies that subsidise leisure, that protect small rituals, and that resist the pressures of speed and productivity, specialty aligns naturally. In those that worship scale, it quickly tends to become performance. The key takeaway: for specialty coffee to thrive, it must find a balance between
Questions & Answers
What does the article mean by “slow” cultures in relation to specialty coffee?
The article refers to cultures that value and appreciate the process of brewing and enjoying specialty coffee, often taking time for a more mindful and deliberate experience.
How does specialty coffee differ from regular coffee in terms of production and taste?
Specialty coffee focuses on higher quality beans, with unique flavors and characteristics due to careful farming, processing, and roasting methods, compared to mass-produced regular coffees.
Information sourced from industry reports and news outlets.
