Chaining Optionals in Java 8

Use a Stream:

Stream.of(find1(), find2(), find3())
    .filter(Optional::isPresent)
    .map(Optional::get)
    .findFirst();

If you need to evaluate the find methods lazily, use supplier functions:

Stream.of(this::find1, this::find2, this::find3)
    .map(Supplier::get)
    .filter(Optional::isPresent)
    .map(Optional::get)
    .findFirst();

You could do it like this:

Optional<String> resultOpt = Optional.of(find1()
                                .orElseGet(() -> find2()
                                .orElseGet(() -> find3()
                                .orElseThrow(() -> new WhatEverException()))));

Though I'm not sure it improves readability IMO. Guava provides a way to chain Optionals:

import com.google.common.base.Optional;

Optional<String> resultOpt = s.find1().or(s.find2()).or(s.find3());

It could be another alternative for your problem but does not use the standard Optional class in the JDK.

If you want to keep the standard API, you could write a simple utility method:

static <T> Optional<T> or(Optional<T> first, Optional<T> second) {
    return first.isPresent() ? first : second;
}

and then:

Optional<String> resultOpt = or(s.find1(), or(s.find2(), s.find3()));

If you have a lot of optionals to chains, maybe it's better to use the Stream approach as other mentionned already.

Inspired by Sauli's answer, it is possible to use the flatMap() method.

Stream.of(this::find1, this::find2, this::find3)
  .map(Supplier::get)
  .flatMap(o -> o.map(Stream::of).orElseGet(Stream::empty))
  .findFirst();

Converting an Optional into a Stream is cumbersome. Apparently, this is going to be fixed with JDK9. So this could be written as

Stream.of(this::find1, this::find2, this::find3)
  .map(Supplier::get)
  .flatMap(Optional::stream)
  .findFirst();

Update after Java 9 was released

Although the original question was about Java 8, Optional::or was introduced in Java 9. With it, the problem could be solved as follows

Optional<String> result = find1()
  .or(this::find2)
  .or(this::find3);