Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway?
When you buy a bag of coffee labelled fifth-generation family farm, it feels like a good choice. But in Guatemala, that label might actually be a signal for a more uncomfortable truth. This episo...
20 Apr 43min
Surrogates: Anything but the coffee
What happens when coffee disappears? This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks. When coffee...
2 Mars 46min
Mother Coffee: The history and heritage of Ethiopia's wild coffee forests
Most coffee is grown on vast plantations using machines, pesticides and fertilisers. But in Ethiopia, coffee grows wild in humid forests surrounded by birds. And that wild coffee matters more th...
9 Feb 48min
We Built This City…On Coffee: Hamburg and the making of Europe's coffee trade
On a long walk through Hamburg, somewhere between the fish markets and giant cranes, you might stumble a giant bronze coffee bean looks like its crash landed from space. But this giant coffee bean ...
5 Jan 50min
Introducing: Series Three of A History of Coffee
We’re back with more stories about the tiny psychoactive seed that changed the world and continues to shape our lives today. Is it possible to follow the story not just to Ethiopia, not just to a sin...
29 Dec 20252min
Coffee Quality, Part 3: When the “quality” myth hits the farm
For twenty years, the 2004 cupping form profoundly shaped the specialty coffee world. But on the hillsides of coffee farms, some of the form’s byproducts have been disadvantaging producers. In th...
8 Dec 202530min
Coffee Quality, Part 2: How “quality” became a myth
If you ask two specialty professionals what makes a high-quality coffee, you’ll likely get a surprisingly consistent answer: clean, sweet, juicy, bright. To an outsider, they would be forgiven for thi...
8 Dec 202525min
