Everything’s a Starbucks.
If we’re being real, the modern café exists in the shadow of that big green mermaid. Walk in, scan the menu hovering over the head of a hip barista, place your order, hear your name mispronounced over the hiss of the espresso machine, and walk out with a cup of sameness.
Sure, third-wave coffee shops start with better coffee, more crafted methods of brewing and scales, but let’s not kid ourselves—most people don’t notice the difference. Especially if their drink involves a mountain of steamed milk. The prices? Maybe a little steeper. The vibe? Slightly curated. But for the average customer, the experience blurs into the same caffeine-charged routine.
The pitch for third-wave shops is that they care. They see you as a person, not a walking latte order. But let’s not romanticize it—some of the kindest baristas I’ve met were behind the counter at a bustling airport Starbucks, cranking out lattes with assembly-line precision to zombies waiting to escape to their next destination.
So, if most people can’t taste the difference and the service is comparable, how does your local café stand out? The easy answer is they’re local. The David in a world of Goliaths. People like to think their extra few bucks go toward a real human, not a shareholder’s yacht. That “homegrown” label buys a lot of goodwill.
But as more and more Davids pop up, how does one café set itself apart? By breaking the Starbucks mold entirely. Stop churning out drinks like widgets. Here’s the brutal truth: cafés have always survived on low margins and high volume. Foot traffic and speed rule the game. It’s why hand-brews are vanishing from menus, replaced by batch brews that crank out cups in seconds. Efficient? Sure. Meaningful? Not as much.
What if we flipped the model? Low volume, high margin. Sounds crazy, right? Let’s crunch it. A solid third-wave shop aims for $1,000 a day in sales. At $4–5 a drink, that’s 200–250 orders daily. After costs, maybe $750 in profit on a good day.
Now, let’s up the ante. Sell the best coffee in the world. Let’s say it now costs you $4.50–$5.50 per cup to make. Sell it for $12–18. Suddenly, you only need to move 70 cups a day to hit that same $750 profit. Now less foot traffic is needed so no high-rent locations with fewer baristas and fewer headaches. Maybe even offer a $30 pour-over that costs $10 to make—something rare, something unforgettable that now lowers that daily drink total even lower.
The catch? You need Michelin-level service. The $12 pour-over doesn’t touch a paper cup. Maybe there’s no counter at all—your order is taken at the table, and every detail of your experience feels deliberate. Coffee served with the care and precision of fine dining.
That’s where I see modern café winning. Not by being Starbucks, but by being something they could never dream of.
I like to tinker. Most recipes don’t stick around long. They’re fun to try but rarely make it into regular rotation. The Devil’s Recipe by Tetsu Kasuya? That’s the exception. First off, the name—no contest, coolest name for any brew method out there. But more than that, it made the best, most consistent coffee I’d ever brewed at home. Simple enough to feel approachable but just layered enough to keep things interesting. I’d stray every now and then, dabble in something new, but I always found my way back to this one.
That said, I couldn’t leave it untouched. I made a few adjustments—small tweaks, nothing sacrilegious—that let lighter roasts sing a little louder. The biggest change? A higher brew ratio at 1:16 and a slightly hotter immersion step at 75°C. Here’s the breakdown.
Coffee to water ratio: 1:16
Coffee: 20g ground medium-coarse (450–500 microns).
Total Water: 320ml
Bloom: 60ml @ 97°C (206°F)
Second Pour: 60ml @ 97°C (206°F)
Final Pour: 200ml @ 75°C (167°F)
Total Brew Time: about 3:00
Rinse the Switch and filter with hot water, then dump the rinse water.
Let’s start by making sure the Switch valve is open.
Add 20g of coffee into the filter, shake to level the bed.
Pour 60ml of water at 97°C over the coffee, saturating the grounds evenly.
Pour another 60ml of water at 97°C, again saturating evenly. Let it drain for 45 seconds.
Add a splash of room-temp water to your kettle, bringing it down to 75°C.
Close the Switch.
Pour 200ml of 75°C water over the coffee. Let it steep for 30 seconds, then open the Switch.
The drawdown should finish just after the 3-minute mark.
Flower Child dropped one of the year’s most hyped coffees over the weekend—La Esmeralda Gesha.
We’ve got a lineup of reviews in the works, and if you want to sip along, here’s what’s in the dugout: Genre’s Basha Bekele, Bold Bean’s Julián Calderón, Black and White’s Riripa, and H&S Basha Bekele.