Coffee: A Global History (Edible)

by Jonathan Morris

exporters, brokers and roasters use homogenization as a risk-management strategy. At least 90 per cent of world coffee production enters the commodity sector. The remaining 5–10 per cent is ‘specialty coffee’: high-quality coffee with a distinctive flavour profile and identifiable geographical origins. Like wine, a coffee’s flavour is reflective of the variety grown, the district’s micro-environment ( terroir), the growing season’s prevalent climatic conditions, and the care with which it is harvested, processed, stored and shipped. Wine contains around three hundred compounds affecting its flavour; for coffee the figure is estimated to be well over a thousand. This ‘special(i)ty’ sector (Europeans used to include the ‘i’, Americans don’t) has grown exponentially over the last thirty years.

Animal Processing Indonesian coffee known as Kopi Luwak is famously processed by palm civet cats. They eat cherries that have fallen to the ground and then excrete beans, effectively performing the de-pulping process. These are collected, washed and finished in the usual way. The enzymes in the cat’s digestive system supposedly impart a unique flavour, enabling the coffee to be retailed for upwards of $100/lb, while a single cup of Kopi Luwak in New York can cost $30. Unsurprisingly other countries have now discovered animals capable of performing the same function, including a Vietnamese weasel, Thai elephants and the Brazilian Jacu bird. Sadly, the fad for Kopi Luwak has resulted in many of the animals being captured and caged to be force-fed coffee beans. Wild certifications do exist but a large proportion of what is sold is presented under false pretences, sometimes having been chemically treated. The bottom line with animal-processed coffee is that what comes out reflects what goes in, and producers can cut costs by using cheaper cherries. The usual qualities ascribed to Kopi Luwak are low acidity and lack of bitterness – these are more about moderating bad coffee than enhancing the good stuff.

coffee plant. It is certain that for the first two hundred or so years of coffee’s recorded existence, between 1450 and 1650, it was consumed almost exclusively by Muslim peoples whose custom sustained a coffee economy centred around the Red Sea. This was the world from which modern versions of the drink evolved and the foundations of the contemporary coffee house format laid.

but a coffee house did not open there until a century afterwards. London was home to Europe’s first coffee houses, yet the British were among the last and the least active of the European coffee producers. Conversely the French, late converts from chocolate, went on to dominate both consumption and colonial production during the eighteenth century. Diffusion of Coffee Culture in Europe1 First Record of Coffee in Territory First Commercial Shipment Received First Coffee House Opened First Colonial Plantings Italian States 1575 Venice 1624 Venice 1683 Venice Netherlands 1596 Leiden 1616 Amsterdam 1640 Amsterdam 1665 Amsterdam1 670 The Hague 1696 Java 1712 Suriname England 1637 Oxford 1657 London 1650? Oxford 1652 London 1730 Jamaica France 1644 Marseilles 1660 Marseilles 1670 Marseilles 1671 Paris 1715 Reunion 1723 Martinique German States 1669 Bremen 1673 Bremen

From the Colonial Era to the Civil War Americans’ preference for coffee is often presented as an outcome of the struggle for independence. Tea became a symbolic focus for the colonists’ demands for ‘no taxation without representation’. The British government imposed a duty on tea imports into the colonies, which were also part of an East India Company monopoly. Protestors staged the Boston Tea Party on 16 December 1773, tipping tea chests off ships in Chesapeake Bay harbour. Consequently, the story goes, American patriots switched to coffee. United States Coffee Consumption Statistics, 1880–19501 Date Total Imports (million lbs) Consumption per Capita (lbs) Share of World Imports (%) 1800 8.8 1.65 1830 38.3 2.98 1860 182.0 5.78 28.7 1890 490.1 8.31 36.1 1920 1,244.9 11.88 56.1 1950 2,427.7 16.04 63.6 The reality is more complicated. Coffee had long been available in the colonies; particularly in Boston, where Dorothy Jones became the first person licensed to sell ‘coffee and cuchaletto [chocolate]’ in 1670. Coffee houses spread through the city, mostly doubling as taverns: the Green Dragon, founded in 1697, was a regular meeting place for political activists. Coffee imports into the colonies were also controlled by the British, however, coming principally from Jamaica.

The bloodiest day of the Civil War was 17 September 1862 at Antietam. Nineteen-year-old Sergeant William McKinley (later a U.S. president) passed along the front line serving the troops coffee, despite coming under heavy fire. The effect on morale ‘was like putting a new regiment in the fight’ according to their commanding officer.5

In 1998 the ico’s composite indicator price for coffee was 109 U.S. cents per pound; by 2002 it had fallen to below 48 cents. Although the price rose thereafter, it was only in 2007 that it returned above $1 to 107 cents. This dramatic and prolonged price collapse had profound effects. Producers were plunged into poverty, while the industry’s public image in consumer countries came under attack. The problem was an ongoing excess of supply over demand. In 2001–2, 113 million bags of coffee were produced, an additional 40 million bags had accumulated, yet world consumption stood at 106 million bags. The ico executive director declared, ‘At the origin of this coffee glut lies the rapid expansion of production in Vietnam and new plantations in Brazil.’24 The price fall consequences were felt differently across the sector. Where costs of production were low, technologies well developed and exchange rate movements favourable, such as in Brazil, it was still possible to make profits. Conversely, where coffee was used as a cash crop by subsistence farmers, as in most African, some Central American and many Asian countries, this reduced the money available to spend on medicines, education, food or servicing debts. In Guatemala, the coffee labour force was halved. In Colombia, farmers ripped up their coffee trees, replacing them with coca plants for the drugs trade. Many Mexican growers gave up and attempted to illegally enter the U.S., often perishing in the attempt. Political conf...

The Birth of Specialty In the United States, the four leading roasters’ market share rose from 46 per cent in 1958 to 69 per cent in 1978. By 2000, the ‘big three’ – Procter & Gamble, Kraft, and Sara Lee – controlled over 80 per cent of the retail market. They competed on price: blend contents were cheapened, and some brands advertised that lower quantities of their product could be used to deliver the same brew strength. These tactics failed to reverse the steady decline in U.S. coffee consumption per capita, which dropped from around 7.25 kilograms (16 lb) in 1960 to 2.7 kilograms (6 lb) by 1995, despite the success of the automatic Mr Coffee machine at converting Americans (especially men) to drip brewing in the 1970s. By contrast, consumption of caffeinated soft drinks boomed, for reasons as diverse as the spread of central heating, the rise of fast food outlets and the appeal of youthful advertising. Independent roasters saw their numbers fall from around 1,500 in 1945 to 162 in 1972. To survive they evolved an alternative business strategy. Rather than price, they would compete on quality, enabling them to increase profit margins on their beans. Their approach suited a consumer economy in which different social groups had started using their purchases to convey messages about their lifestyles, values and tastes. These might include demonstrating sophistication or wealth; adherence to ‘alternative’, anti-corporate values; or a preference for ‘authentic’ artisan goods.