Every morning, the cup of coffee in our hands actually contains vast technology, capital, and the desires of the era. Today, let’s explore a very special story that is changing the paradigm of the coffee market: the ‘Fifth Wave’. And through the company leading this massive wave, ‘Blank Street Coffee,’ let’s find clues about the future.
The future is already here. It just hasn’t spread evenly yet.
How Did Coffee Come to Us?
To understand the new wave today, we need to briefly look back at the path we’ve walked. Our relationship with coffee has continuously evolved over time.
First Wave: “Anytime, Anywhere!” – The Age of Accessibility
Long ago, coffee was just a black liquid to chase away sleepiness. The advent of instant coffee made it possible to drink coffee anywhere—at home, office, or mountain top—if you had hot water. Though the taste was compromised, the convenience of “anytime, anywhere” drinking dominated the era.
Second Wave: “Not Just Coffee, But Space!” – The Age of Experience
Then Starbucks appeared and said, “This is not just a place to buy coffee; it’s your third place.” We willingly opened our wallets to consume the ‘space’ with comfortable sofas, soothing music, and Wi-Fi. Coffee finally became ‘culture.’
Third Wave: “Coffee Is Fruit!” – The Age of Quality
At some point, people grew tired of uniform coffee flavors. “Where do the beans I drink come from?” Brands like Blue Bottle emphasized the story of the farm where beans were grown—the ’terroir’—and presented specialty coffee carefully brewed by skilled baristas. Coffee entered the realm of ‘gourmet.’
Fourth Wave: “Perfection Through Data!” – The Age of Science
But human hands could not be perfect. They wanted to solve the subtle taste differences between yesterday’s and today’s coffee. So ‘science’ emerged. Every factor—bean weight, water temperature, extraction time—was converted into data to create “perfectly delicious coffee every time.” This was the final warm-up for the Fifth Wave.
| Category | First Wave | Second Wave | Third Wave | Fourth Wave |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Value | Accessibility, Convenience | Brand Experience, Space | Quality, Craftsmanship | Consistency, Objectivity |
| Representative Brands | Nescafé, Dongseo Food | Starbucks | Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia | - |
| Main Limitation | Sacrifice of Quality | Uniformity of Coffee | Low Scalability | Difficulty in Mass Application |
And Finally, the Fifth Wave: A New Era Mixing Everything
The Fifth Wave is an era that puts all these values into a giant blender and reassembles them with the powerful force of ’technology.’ Three major drivers are leading this change.
Driver 1: The Emergence of a New Consumer, the MZ Generation
Today’s coffee market protagonist is the MZ generation. They have very particular and clear tastes.
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- Healthy Pleasure: “I want to stay healthy too!” Decaf and oat milk are now standard options.
- Small Luxury: “If I’m drinking coffee every day, it should be the best!” They want a valuable cup, not just an expensive one.
- Market Polarization: “No middle ground!” They seek either very cheap or clearly premium options.
Driver 2: Commands from Smart Robots
Rising labor costs have made ‘automation’ a necessity, not a choice. Cutting-edge fully automatic machines go beyond replacing humans—they create a new value of ‘absolute taste consistency.’ Without fluctuations caused by a barista’s condition, they produce a perfect cup every time.
Driver 3: Unbundling of Cafés
Think about it. When you pay for Starbucks coffee, you’re also paying for the expensive rent of a large store. But now, many people order via mobile and just pick up their coffee. The Fifth Wave targets this point. “Do we really need to sell expensive space to everyone?” They boldly cut unnecessary real estate and focus solely on delivering ’the highest quality coffee’ as quickly and reasonably priced as possible.
The Icon of the Fifth Wave, Blank Street Coffee
The most perfect textbook proving all these changes is ‘Blank Street Coffee.’
Different from the Start
The founders were not coffee artisans but venture capitalists looking to solve market ‘problems.’ Their question was simple: “Why is delicious specialty coffee always expensive and requires a long wait?” They viewed coffee not as art but as an ‘optimized system’ to be perfected.
Three Keys to Success
Blank Street promises three things:
- Quality: Swiss-made top-tier automatic machines pull perfect shots with zero error.
- Affordability: With a small store under 10 pyeong (~330 sq ft) and only 1–2 employees, they save on rent and labor costs, lowering coffee prices.
- Convenience: Stores are located on busy streets, and pre-ordering via app means no waiting at all.
They also knew exactly how to capture Gen Z’s hearts. The pretty green cup, perfect for Instagram, became their best marketing tool.
What They’re Really Selling
Surprisingly, investors poured billions into this company not just for the coffee taste. What they truly invested in was the ’low-cost, high-efficiency store model that can be instantly replicated and scaled by putting in money.’
Brilliant Success, But Shadows Behind
However, cold criticism of ’lack of soul’ follows this dazzling success.
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- Sustainability Issues: As a takeout-only shop, it inevitably produces massive amounts of disposable cup waste.
- Human Alienation: Chasing efficiency, employees become mere machine operators and suffer from excessive workloads.
- Neighborhood Market Disruption: Criticized for threatening small local cafes with huge capital and subtly copying their emotional appeal.
Perhaps Blank Street’s biggest weakness is the ‘absence of emotional connection.’ Relationships based only on price and convenience can easily switch to cheaper, more convenient competitors.
What Kind of Coffee Will We Drink?
The massive wave called the Fifth Wave has just begun. How can we survive on this wave?
# To New Challengers (Aspiring Entrepreneurs) Learn from Blank Street’s efficient system. But find opportunity in the ‘soul’ they miss. Use the time saved by technology to sincerely communicate with customers and create unique local stories that big capital cannot imitate, building strong bonds.
# To Established Leaders (Starbucks, etc.) Blindly copying them might mean abandoning your greatest weapon: the value of ‘space.’ Instead, make the drink-making process faster and more perfect with technology, and use the saved labor to offer customers a more moving ‘space experience.’
In the end, the future coffee market winner won’t be the company with the best robot. It will be the company that uses technology to let people focus on more human tasks, balancing efficiency with warm emotion.
Finding the coolest way for the best robot barista and the best human barista to collaborate—that is the real question the Fifth Wave poses to us.