What IS Coffee Part 1: The Brutally Honest Truth

When we think of coffee, we think of a brown liquid that hipsters drink in airy cafes, typically milk is involved, and usually the drink is in the price range of $5-$10 (a price that budget gurus claim will make you a billionaire if you skip out on the weekly latte). That’s only part of the story. A romanticized view, and might I say, a gentrified one.

Something that is rarely broken down in coffee training in the west is where coffee comes from — where it really comes from. You could rephrase this to ask, when you place coffee in the mirror, what does their face look like? The answer might surprise you. If we, as an industry, were to be brutally honest, coffee is not a white industry. Coffee, like many other “commodity” industries is built on the backs of black and brown people, and would not exist without them.

When we think of coffee, we should pay homage to ancestors who were colonized. Generations who have suffered at the hands of imperialism without the opportunity of reaping the rewards. How, coffee has been cheapened through the industrial revolution, through capitalism, consumed more and more, but at what cost? Think about how white men profit off of this industry as a “face” where the hands of coffee are left grasping for more. Why is your morning cup of coffee $5? You think $3.50 is too much? Check your privilege at the door. At the end of the day, coffee should not be treated as a commodity product when in the specialty market. It is processed in similar ways to wine. It is more craft than beer. Yet, it’s expected to stay cheap and nothing more.

We need to question the roots of why we have that impression, that bias. Are we feeding into colonialism or are there tangible ways for us to be active participants in this industry? Can we change systemic issues and put money back into the deserving pockets? or will we continue to consume until the crop that has connected so many is no more.

I guess this is a bit of a long winded and preachy way of starting out a series about coffee, but I wanted to start out with this to have us question more about coffee’s origins and WHO grows it rather than who consumes us, so we can have a more holistic view of a system that has impacted the world.