Coffee is an amazing agricultural gem, cited as being the second largest traded commodity in the world after petroleum. It has an amazing, rich and complicated history, having journeyed from Africa through Yemen to Indonesia and then on to the Americas.

Coffee has been fought over, coveted, and exploited. It has been inevitably linked to colonial rule, and it’s subsequent aftermath. It acted as a powerful elixir in religious ceremonies. It filled the bottomless diner cup drenched in milk and sugar, and it is a wonderfully nuanced specialty beverage that people search the world over for. One could spend their entire life learning about coffee: the history, the botany, how it’s processed and handled and traded, about roasting, blending, packaging, grinding, brewing and one would never learn all there is to know. That is part of why coffee is so wonderful, there are so many mysteries to explore.