Verve Coffee Roasters is a coffee company originally from Santa Cruz. Founded in 2007 as a simple cafe by Colby Barr and Ryan O’Donovan. As one of the main actors of the third wave of coffee, Verve has received multiple awards for the quality of its coffee.
Foundational to Verve’s quality coffee is its Farmlevel Initiative. Not only does it pay farmers premiums for quality beans through direct trade relationships, it also creates an open line of communication to show farmers that their work matters, their attention to detail is noticed, and that Verve supports them. At the roastery, Verve works with vintage Probat roasters updated with the most state of the art components and monitoring software, which helps it roast with consistency. Everything is done by hand with great attention to detail.
Today Verve has shops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Japan and it supplies coffee to more than 400 restaurants, cafes, and grocers, as well as the Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Airbnb offices.
Third Wave of Coffee
Verve Coffee Roaster, is one of the coffee companies who helped usher in the Third Wave of Coffee in the US.
While the First Wave saw the growth of coffee consumption in the US during the first half of the 20th century, in the 60s the second wave started with producers beginning to take a stand against bland mass-produced coffee. Thank coffee houses like Starbucks for introducing Americans to good coffee. Then, in the nineties connoisseurship began to develop, starting the Third Wave.
While many roasters burn their coffees to mask the bad flavors of substandard beans, Third Wave producers seek out the highest quality raw materials to lightly roast them, preserving the nuanced flavors to craft aromatic drinks. Relying heavily on farmers, the progressive roasters created close ties with them, starting initiatives such as direct trade.
Coffee roaster like Verve, Blue Bottle and Intelligentsia are responsible for creating a new coffee culture in the US - one that is marked by thorough knowledge of and appreciation for the various growing, roasting and brewing processes.
