Coffee Culture
The Fourth Place Fight: How Home Brewers Are Building Coffee Community Without a Café
85% of coffee drinkers now brew at home, per NCA data. Here's where their real coffee community lives, and why it's not the café anymore.
From the War Room
Blog: third place
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Industry Trends
The Robot Barista Rematch: Why Round Two Might Not Go the Same Way
Cafe X's robot baristas lost to human counters back in 2020. Better vision tech and tighter margins mean the rematch might not go the same way this time.
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Coffee Culture
The Seat-Time War: Why Cafés From Seoul to Brooklyn Are Fighting to Take Their Tables Back
Starbucks Korea just banned desktop PCs and printers from its cafés. Here's the seat-time economics behind it, and why cafés worldwide fight the same laptop war.
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Coffee Culture
Coffee Culture in the Shadows: What Tirana, Karnataka, and Corfu Teach Us About Belonging
From a vinyl-spinning basement bar in Tirana to farmer-roasters in Karnataka to an 83-year-old briki master in Corfu - three coffee cultures fighting for authen
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Coffee Culture
The Third Place Fight: How Coffee Shops Are Winning the War on Loneliness
Coffee shops are the last standing infrastructure for accidental humanity - here's why the third place matters more than ever.