Coffee Culture: The Global Impact of Coffee
by Marisa Buhr Mizunaka
Last month, as the fear of COVID-19 grew, our mayor declared a “stay at home” order. My husband and I went to the cafe where I work for a last coffee outing before we would resign ourselves to staying at home. We chatted about the meaning of “essential workers” with some regulars while waiting. They exuberantly exclaimed, “Coffee is essential!”
Virtue of the Coffee Drink. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
As a culture, we are infatuated by coffee. It is often the first thing we want when waking up, our go-to outing for business and pleasure, the cure-all for exhaustion, the last thing we drop when our budgets are cut.
Many, like my regulars above, would say coffee is an essential part of their routine and lives. Yet, the majority of consumers of coffee know very little about the origins and social impact of their daily drink. We accept the heightened price of lattes and espresso without considering the holistic price or meaning of coffee at large. Though coffee is representative of relationships in our culture today, we do not understand coffee’s importance to people or cultures worldwide. We’re going to journey a little into where coffee came from and why it’s important to invest attention into relational coffee.
The Evolution of Coffee
The first wave of coffee took place from the 1800s to the 1960s. During this period of time, coffee was grown and brought around the world, from Africa to Yemen to Europe and eventually making its way to America. Coffee in this time was a new and global phenomenon, with coffeehouses opening and facilitating conversation all over the globe. Coffee could be reasonably understood as a commodity in this era.
The second wave of coffee brought freshly roasted coffee to the world’s attention, with companies like Starbucks and Peet’s at the forefront of bringing better coffee to consumers. In this time period, the idea of coffee shops being “the third place” was born in the US. People started to understand coffee more personally and a little more artisanally.
The third wave of coffee is generally where we are now. In a broad stroke, the “third wave” is focused on relational coffee. From more direct relationships across the supply chain to providing connection to consumers in a cafe setting, third-wave coffee is focused on both the quality of coffee and experience. Proponents of “third wave coffee” would agree that coffee is a bridge to the people and places coffee is grown.
The Specialty Coffee Association's Research Center partnered with Square to produce the 2018 Square Coffee Reports. To learn more, visit sca.coffee/research.
However, third wave, specialty coffee makes up only a small percentage of the world’s consumption of coffee. Most coffee you see at the grocer’s or instant coffee is made from commodity coffee, a definition of which follows,
“If a pound of coffee conforms to these quality standards, then it can be traded on the C Market, and its value is deemed identical to all of the other pounds of coffee that have also met C Market quality standards.”
The conception that coffee is a commodity deeply impacts the lives of coffee growers. The major fault of the C Market is that the amount farmers get paid for the coffee they grow is not based on the cost of operation, but the whims of the volatile market. To give a little perspective, the cost for a farmer to break even in the short-term is generally around $1.05 to $1.40 per pound. C Market price for coffee today is $1.16, which is on the higher side within a year’s time (The lowest price being $0.87 in May 2019, highest being $1.33 in December 2019). Many farmers are abandoning their farms because the reality is, for most farmers, growing coffee is no longer viable.
(Read more about the cost of sustainable farming here.)
Coffee geek. Image courtesy of Unsplash.
Specialty coffee is a response to this reality. Specialty coffee puts more emphasis on the natural qualities of coffee that come from terroir and attempts to properly value the coffee that farmers are putting work into growing and processing excellently. We all want coffee to continue, and the only way to do that sustainably is to understand the value and therefore cost of coffee. Even though specialty coffee makes up a small part of the market, it is giving coffee the stage it needs for the world to pay attention.
Thankfully, the trend has been a curiosity and support for understanding the value of coffee. Because the truth is, coffee is exciting! It is such a new and intriguing field that we are all participating in together. Consumers of coffee are starting to understand that coffee has a lot to give in terms of flavor and community, that each origin of coffee speaks to the ground it inhabited and the people that nurtured it to existence.
Battlecreek Coffee Roasters. Image courtesy of Unsplash.
I recently went to do a cupping with our roaster and their team. I felt intimidated because I don’t often do cuppings, but the head roaster mused assuringly to me, “the coffee industry is so young compared to the wine industry. We are all learning together.” And there is still so much to learn, understand, and contribute.
El Cedral. Image courtesy of Saint Frank Coffee.
“We do not see specialty coffees as a boutique version of an otherwise normative commodity. We see specialty coffee as a window into the redemption of a broken and oppressive system in which personal and corporate distance places convenience and profit in front of dignity and humanity.” Source
There is a real cost to coffee, ecological, and human--a cost that is far beyond the commodity value. That is exactly why we should be talking and thinking about the unseen costs of our actions. We can talk about what is good, what is just, what is love inside of the church, but how many of us think about the global impact of our daily decisions?
Coffee as a Starting Point
Though we are looking solely at coffee in this article, I truly hope it to be a diving board off which we might consider the impact of all the other mundane decisions we make in a day. The reality is that our individual decisions impact our world--Not just the physical earth, but real humans around the globe. It is only together that we can steward the earth as we were commanded to and that we are able to become witnesses to the ends of the earth.
We all must reconcile, holding the two truths, that we are both too little and all too important in the stewardship of God’s Kingdom. We cannot break cycles of oppression or change the climate on our own, but we must know that our contribution matters. We aren’t living for today alone, but for our children and for our children’s children. It is a process of transformation, like any other spiritual discipline. We don’t have to overhaul our lives and habits in a day, but when our motivations change, our perspective is slowly able to shift from selfish to selfless. Even if we only implement one small change every month, it slowly spreads compassion and awareness through our bodies, our souls, our earth, and our global community.
I would want to spur us on to start thinking most highly of our decisions and their impact on the world and the people around us. Our lives are not our own; our world is not ours to ignore but to love, cultivate, and care for. I hope we will take steps together to bring our world closer to Light and Life.
Practical Steps
Practise awareness, compassion, and kindness--even in your spending habits.
Research your coffee of choice’s origins, both in location and ethical sourcing. Consider the human and ecological resources used in its production.
Ask your barista the origins of the coffee you’re drinking. Appreciate the differences between them--Whether it’s a light, fruity, acidic Ethiopia or a thick, chocolate and nutty Colombia.
Educate yourself on how you can reduce your own footprint, even if they are small: Carry a reusable water bottle instead of using plastic. Choose to walk or take public transportation instead of driving alone. Start small, start now.
Sources and Additional Reading
Resources
We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.
The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.
And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.
Read. Engage. Enjoy!
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Depending on how a gem is held, light refracts differently. At B+PC we engage in Pop Culture topics to see ideas from a new angle, to bring us to a deeper understanding. And like Pastor Shane Willard notes, we want “…Jesus to get bigger, the cross to get clearer, the Resurrection to be central…” Instead of approaching a topic from “I don’t want to be wrong,“ we strive for the alternative “I want to expand my perspective.”
So, we invite you to engage with us here. What piqued your curiosity to dig deeper? What line inspired you to action? What idea made you ask, “Hmmm?” Let’s join with our community to wrestle with our thoughts in love in the Comment Section! See you there!