Everything seems different with “coffee travel” these days. Maybe that’s good though …
Work has changed and approaches to work have changed. I realize people in many job roles are asking themselves “Why? “Why do I do what I do, why is this needed, what drives this particular task, what purpose does it serve, is there a different way to do this?”
Traveling to visit our coffee sources feels this way too. For me, the assumptions behind this kind of self-assigned task has always felt a bit uncertain. But I realize that’s me… I pretty much always am wanting to understand why, and in the case of coffee sourcing, what is the narrative that drives it.
(We have an audio version of this article , or read on… )
On this trip to RwandaA Bourbon cultivar variant from Rwanda and Burundi. Bourbon coffees are named for the island in the India Ocean where French colonists grew it. Some history from the..., and my previous one this year to GuatemalaGuatemalan coffee is considered a top quality coffee producer in Central America. Due to our proximity to Guatemala, some of the nicest coffees from this origin come to..., things felt strange. I felt a bit like I was cast in a role, acting in some way that felt both familiar from the past, but alienating too. Coffee is a global product. It makes sense that someone needs to verify quality when quality is the main driver of a sale. If someone contracted to build a high end appliance in China, they would definitely want to travel to meet the engineers, and check fabrication quality in person. So yeah, in a nuts-and-bolts way it makes sense.
Like all the stations, hand sorting of coffee cherry is an important step, and the first one taken when coffee enters the station.Color is not always a perfect indicator of ripeness actually. In a crop like this, many part red / part green cherries are actually quite ripe. Use what you have … the Ecotact hermetic bags we use to protect coffee quality also are great as rain jackets
But coffee is, somewhat regrettably, about stories too. There is always a narrative connected to it, marketing. Where is this coffee from, who grew it, what are the conditions it’s grown under, what explains its quality? Marketing is not a word I feel very comfortable with, but it would be disingenuous to say there wasn’t value added to coffee by the narrative that accompanies it.
What I have decided though is that the narrative should be truthful, and it should matter. It should not be bull shit. It’s not as easy as it sounds though, because some things that are “true” about coffee happen to be the easiest for consumers to digest, so what I see in the coffee trade is those particular details gain outsized importance because…. they sell coffee.
Examples? Coffee varieties. The plant varietyA botanical variety is a rank in the taxonomic hierarchy below the rank of species and subspecies and above the rank of form (form / variety / subspecies... matters, it is true. But how much? The altitude. Yes, that matters as well, but it’s not like there is a single “good” altitude to grow coffee at … and higher isn’t aways better.
Why are plant variety and altitude so prevalent in coffee marketing (including ours) ? One reason is because they relate to other posh products, such as wine for example. But another reason I see is that they appeal to a consumer-friendly idea of intrinsic qualities, material difference.
And while true, those material differences are interesting not only because of where they draw focus to … but also what they draw focus away from. They draw focus away from human labor.
If someone did ask me what the single most important factor is in coffee that results in quality (nobody ever does though), my answer would be this; manual labor.
Without the manual work to farm coffee, to harvest it, process it in the wet millThe wet mill is a processing center where coffee cherry from the tree is brought for initial processing.: The wet mill goes by many names (Beneficio, Factory, Washing..., hand-select it on the drying beds, bulk it up to haul to the warehouse, and dry-mill it for export, there would be no quality. It would be bulk, undifferentiated commodity.
You can farm GeshaGesha is a long-bean Ethiopia selection with unique cup character. Gesha is the name of the town in Western Ethiopia where the original samples were collected. Spelling it... at 1950 MASLMeters Above Sea Level ... altitude that is...: Meters Above Sea Level, altitude that is... and without labor, skilled and trained labor, you would have a bulk commodity product … I mean, between the wood and dirt flavors you might get a hint of fruit, as you expectorated your first sip.
I have thought about this aspirational relationship coffee marketing has to the world of wine. I don’t get it. The talk about “coffee quality” has included a lot of consumer-focused buzzwords that help distinguish a particular micro-lotA term that designates not only a small volume of coffee, but a lot produced separately, discreetly picked or processed to have special character. Read the full definition!:... as being “really special.” We see labels that have fanciful names, or a particular farm / estateA "coffee estate" is used to imply a farm that has its own processing facility, a wet-mill. In Spanish this is called an Hacienda. A Finca (farm) does.... It’s a bit like wine labeling. We see coffee bags that mention the coffee variety, such as Heirloom TypicaA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... or Gesha. That too is a bit like wine, right? And we see a big increase in terms for special processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural..., like Anaerobic FermentationA line of sealed plastic yellow barrels for anaerobic fermentation at Punta del Cerro mill in Huehuetenango. Anaerobic simply means "without air", which makes this term that describes..., or Carbonic Maceration, or Black HoneyIn coffee, honey-like sweetness is often found, but we use terms such as refined honey (highly filtered and processed) as opposed to raw honey rustic honey sweetness. This.... I see that on wine labels too. In others words, terms and descriptors that make sense to consumers because they parallel a way another product is sold, in this case an aspirational attachment to a “classy” item like wine, seem to find a place in coffee marketing quite easily.
Transporting coffee cherry to the station in the evening. Cyangugu rock academy? Just a painting on a nursery school I think.On this trip it seemed much of the green-red coffee, on closer inspection, was actually ripe. Odd year here.
Coffee in the past, cheap and plentiful, made in the office pot-after-pot, certainly doesn’t seem like a very elite beverage. But if you press grapes to make grape juice or table vinegarA defective flavor taint in coffee, resulting perhaps from poor processing, fermentation, sanitation.: Vinegar-like qualities are a defective flavor taint in coffee, resulting perhaps from poor processing, fermentation,..., but could also grow different varieties to produce wine, seems like that’s a better financial proposition. Turning coffee from just being grape juice into being wine is certainly an upgrade as well, no? Yeah, a flawed analogy but it has some weight to it…
Really, none of this is what I think about traveling in Rwanda. It’s the stuff I think about on the way back home. The way coffee is marketed seems so strange, completely foreign to things that really matter in actually producing coffee. The marketing expresses something “added on”, what coffee is as a global product, meanings that form an overlay, wrapping the raw material in something like a metaphysical package. It’s about promise and desire, not of the producer but the consumer, and coffee is just an empty vessel to load up with this significance.
It’s good to stop there (even if there is much more to say, but I know few want to have a conversation about commodity fetishism and coffee as I do).
Another reason to stop is that the labor that goes into producing quality coffee is real, and it is obscured by both the marketing, and even by the well-meaning images of coffee pickers etc meant to represent it. Those idealized images have their own fetish in a way, whether they show a laborer holding out their hands filled with coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the... to signify willing work and abundance, or show hardship that stokes implicit guilt or pity by consumers in the global north. Either form narratives that have little to do with the lived experience of a coffee laborer or their economic situation.
As anyone who takes travel photos knows, the picture taking part is easy. The real work is in looking at what you have, editing, cropping, keywording, captioning. That work is where the narrative is built, the good picture vs the bad one, the significant vs insignificant. Even in this basic editorial judgment, images become organized into communicable experiences that often fall into established narrative lines.
These narratives can be straight-forward, simplistic or sometimes fairly problematic, such as romantic notions of “the exotic”. Perspective matters a lot and when traveling without a level of self-awareness, things can get weird. For example, a traveller that pares down their photos to include only “exotic” content, things that seem “strange and uncommon” may not consider that for every local in their photo frame, it is very common. A place may seem “far-away” to this tourist, but to those “others” in your images, you are just another person in their backyard.
Yeah, it you feel something is awesome and unusual, snap that photo! I know I do. At the same time, recognize how that “unusual” quality is being generated: For me some of those factors might include a. my ability to have a vacation from work (or work that’s like a vacation!), b. my ability to buy an airline ticket and fly across the world,, c. my technical and financial advantage to own camera gear, d. my ability focus a camera on one “strange” thing and omit everything else around it, e. the magnitude of history, of Western culture that creates fanciful ideas about “other people” to create desire for consumption while mystifying the exploitation of labor that produces the product … oh it could go on and on…
One response I have is, I suppose, to just to a bad job in forming a narrative: Include the photos that don’t fit, that doesn’t promote the storyline, expand the frame.
I realize I don’t do a great job at this (I’m bad at being bad?) but in a way, just having multiple photo-interests does complicate the plot. For example, if a tourist took photos only of “scenic” parts of town on the beaten trail from a guide book …not much there. If they added local dogs, people doing daily work, the elderly meeting in the park …well, there’s some layers there. Add in photos of trash piles, some shady deal on a side street, a mysteriously-placed shoe, and the tattoo on the neck of the taxi driver … now we’re talking! I’m trying to joke here … but the idea behind it is that “disordered representations” can be a tiny bit liberating.
And an expanded frame through which to represent these “far away places” also elevates the role of the audience. It assumes they are intelligent, and might find for themselves what is interesting and what isn’t within a set of images. These are small things, but applied to something like marketing of coffee, it’s possible to see how more diverse imagery from outside the usual frame could, at a minimum, complicate the usual storylines by which products are sold.
Thanks for reading these random thoughts. Now for some random pictures. You can click on them to see larger size in a lightbox, if you want to. Thanks – Tom
Nyamiyaga in central Kamonyi district at 1740 meters at the station. It’s a larger capacity station.Nyamiyaga counts 3100 farmers in the zone but delivery is only 10% from farmers direct to the washing station.Jean Bosco, the manager tells me they do two fermentations, dry for 12 hours and then eight hours underwater.Cargo bikes are an important means of livelihood in Rwanda.Getting coffee to washing stations from collector sites, or goods to rural stores is often done my bike.Making a late visit to Nyamyumba washing stationCoffee washing stations are active in the late evening into the night as coffee arrives from collector sites and farmers.Rwanda has excellent fresh milk and dairy products in the rural areas. These stainless containers are used to transport it.Mixed messages along the road, Rwanda.Celine, the chief agronomist shows me some of the coffee sorted out in skin drying / shade drying, when the coffee is still wet.The washing channel is used to grade the coffee for quality as well as agitate off the remaining mucilage from fermentation.Part of the process in a Rwanda station is to dry coffee initially in the shade, while sorting it. Later it goes to the beds in the sun.The tubs of coffee that is still wet from processing can weigh 50 lbs each.Supposedly the use of old style home made wood bikes was banned by the central goverment several years ago, but they are important for those who move cargo and cannot afford a steel frame bike.Tea is an important crop in Rwanda as well, and Rwandan tea is know for its excellent quality. Tea is farmed by coops, as well as large companies that lease land from the government.Like all the stations, hand sorting of coffee cherry is an important step, and the first one taken when coffee enters the station.Color is not always a perfect indicator of ripeness actually. In a crop like this, many part red / part green cherries are actually quite ripe. You can tell by squeezing them to check softness, and sugar levels in mucilage.Before delivering coffee cherry, farmers are expected to sort out the overripe and underripe. By law they are paid for the total volume they bring though, independent of ripeness.Cherry sorting in progress. This year I noted the coffee cherry seemed much more green generally. Unusual weather and rain might have been part of this.Pushing the coffee through the channel is intense physical work. The “rakes” are made from local eucalyptus, and require a lot of force to push through the wet coffee mass.We took bikes to ride between the next two stations. Along the way. local market way off the main paved roads.Rural shops feature all kinds of materials and just in case you need pictures …We took mountain bikes but wish I had used ont of these… mushonyi to musasa bike tripThe bikes in Rwanda are modified including solid steel racks (made with a lot of rebar – heavy!) and front fork supports. This is to save the frame from breaking under the heavy loads, often 150 lbs of coffee or banana.Much of the coffee fruit that comes to a station is delivered by bike, and most of that comes from collectors, who take a small fee from farmers to handle their coffee.The coffee is largely processed in evening hours, fermented overnight (or a full 24 hours), then washed in the morning.In the late afternoon much of the work is finished – here is evidence of the sorting of coffee from low grade, even from the skins that are washed away yet still contain some coffee seeds. All coffee finds a home.Much of the heavy and bulky loads require walking the bikes uphill… sometimes down hill too.Rain fall was prolonged and uneven during the season, so cherry development varied greatly in both size and ripening.Antestia is the type of coffee berry borer – CBB- that is most common in East Africa. It is larger than “broca” and tends to bore a bigger hole in the coffee, I have seen.Much of the work at the washing stations, and coffee in general, is done by women … though in Rwanda I see men and women often working side by side in many tasks. Not in this image though!Use what you have … the Ecotact hermetic bags we use to protect coffee quality also are great as rain jacketsKarambi is struggling this year to have space to dry coffee. Sometimes larger crops are a bigger problem for handling coffee, labor and quality.Many times the washing stations are located by small villages of 10-20 shops that offer various goods and services. Next to Karambi station, sewing African wax cloth into garments.In the Western coffee regions of Rwanda, you can see the lake from many ofd the highland washing stations, creating beautiful landscapes.Transporting coffee cherry to the station in the evening. Many of the bikes have awesome decoration, like this with all the reflectors.The coffee cherry from the day is spread out for sorting up at Kanyege station. This coffee is sorted differently since it is bound for sun drying as natural (dry process) coffee.Beating on an oil drum with sticks and singing a “welcome muzungu” song at Kanyege. It’s wonderful and discomforting at the same time, but greatly appreciated either way. The muscle this took to play that rhythm was awesome – those were basically 2x4s!Skin drying / Shade drying is a great practice but one you see few places besides Rwanda. It means the coffee is slowly loses moisture, rather than going straight to the sun.Shade drying is usually for the first 1-2 days, and keeps the parchment layer from cracking later. In the shade you can see certain defects too, better than when the parchment is fully dry.Located at 1825 meters, Kanyege is a smaller station in a colder climate. Fermentation takes longer here, and the coffee season extends longer.Favorite slippers at Kanyege. I saw these around Rwanda, and was dying to find some to buy and bring home. But they weren’t in the local stores… only on people’s feet.Another favorite product name I saw around, and at various washing stations. Seems that washing hands has become a big thing, perhaps because it’s required for some certification or other.Macuba produced some great coffee last year so I was determined to get there. It was totally dark but the station was full of activity. Besides sorting coffee cherry, farmers float the fruit in water and skim off any cherry that floats. Those go into the Grade B cherry batch.This photo just cracked me up in a travelogue, the kind of thing in representing a supposedly “faraway” country that reminds me how familiar it can be too, in shlock, in commercial culture. This was on a gas pump at a station.Driving south toward Bukavu, Congo, I saw these guys with a serious load of chickens bound for market. Haven’t seen that before…Cyangugu rock academy? Just a painting on a nursery school I think.This truck was headed toward Uganda with an incredible load of matresses … look under the beds and you see even more hanging down near the road surface! Wow.In the morning the beds are opened up to start the drying for the day – beds are always covered at night to prevent gaining moisture from dew.Each day the coffee beds have to be uncovered and the coffee spread out in a thin layer to dry evenlyAround a station, all coffee is moved by hand. When the coffee is sorted in the shade, it is bagged to haul out into the sun. Nothing moves by itself! People do it, and generally 70-80% of washing station labor seems to be women.Once the coffee is loaded to the beds, it will be rotated regularly to dry evenly, often usung small rakes. Then the people will pass through each and every bed to hand pick defects a second time (it was done once in the shade).Along the way, headed toward Gaseke, some wedding fashion. A great painting!While much coffee is processed at stations, people still do home processing as well. Here coffee is drying along the road. The government tries to prevent this as the low quality means lower price, yielding less for the country.At Gaseke station, harvest is winding down with just a bit of coffee coming from the higher and colder climes. But there was some cherry still ripening on trees nearbyPulling parchment samples to take back to Kigali and mill. I wanted to cup the batches at the station, but none had been sent to the capital yet. Samples from the station are oftentimes too fresh, but give a good indication on the quality direction…Literally: the managers name is Innocent. Last visit, pre covid, he was wearing the same lab coat I swear! He’s just rocking his own style there…Bringing in coffee to Gaseke in the day, young and old … actually seems that the elderly come earlier for the social aspect, whereas the younger enterprising collectors show up later.More great “message” shoes on some kids near the station. It gives new weight to the idea of “stand correct”Passing from Gaseke station headed back to the main road, we passed through a part of the Nyungwe national forest, and came out in a tea area.Tea is also labor intensive, but involves wide tracks of tree-less open land. The land is sometimes divided into separate lots that coops work, or in some cases leased to large companies like Unilever.Tea work seems laborious like coffee but in different ways. The tea bush seems to be pretty hostile to pass through, so I believe the heavy waterproof skirts of rubber/plastic are for scratch protection, as much as staying dryGorilla tourism is important revenue in Rwanda and they manage in carefully (and quite well!). But I don’t believe there is a Gorilla within 200 miles from this point … so maybe thats why there is a concrete one? Dunno.Next day I am back in Nyamesheke at Mutovu station, where we have bought for some 10 years or so. Here is the weigh in for coffee, since farmers are paid for the whole amount, even if it contains green unripes or overripes.In this case the coffee has a lot of ripe but quite a bit of green. Yet on this trip it seemed much of the green-red coffee, on closer inspection, was actually ripe. Odd year here.Shade dry sorting for defects at Mutovu washing station. The Manager Samuel had sent everyone on lunch just before we arrived so not many folks around.Coffee farming is really everywhere in the West of Rwanda, so off the main roads, you will often be driving though the coffee farms.Between stations, somebody and their favorite kicks. In fact this was a thing, the graphic of a sporty shoe on this specific lower window on the trucks. Rwanda style.We stopped to visit Fred, who manages Gatare station. It’s very close to other stations we buy from, but there is a nice quality in the area. Unfortunately the competion in the zone is very stiff, driving cherry prices up. It’s good for the farmers though. Lots of options to outlet their coffee at the best prices.Nearby is Gitwe, where have bought for some years. Augiste is manager. He is in Kigali today. They have received 289 tons. Those are my notes. And they go on…After coffee comes in from the drying beds at 11% moisture, it is often rested for some time indoors before sending it to Kigali. It could just be logistics of transport, but it also is good for the stability of the coffee in terms of moisture and water activity.Selfie selfie. I found myself at the mission, where we usually stay in this area since the only other option is a rather bizarre place called Ishara Beach Hotel, that has no beach, and really no hotel either. The mission is a medical hospital that rents out extra rooms to travelers like me.Well, red brown. Home, dog, bike. Rwanda style.Having a bike in Rwanda makes a lot of economic sense, for hauling goods but people too. The more the better.Near Butare, getting back toward urban sophistication. But not really there yet.I stopped for a covid test at a rural private clinic in Butare town and really enjoyed their trophy. I want one too!Cupping in Kigali and a walk around the Rwanda Trading coffee mill, which is a fantasic place. Dunno why this was the picture I kept. I like grids.Next day I head out with JJ to Tumba, a bit north. Venuste is the owner here and he does an amazing job running the station. It’s a model of “best practices”.At Tumba, Mr Venuste was busy for a bit doing some payments to workers, while we walked the station. He was a teacher for the school before starting the station with a partner some years ago.Back in Kigali we visited another dry mill, with stacks of past crop commercial coffee ready to sell. With the global economy in this state, sales for low grades is strong. Problem is that a big buyer is Russia!Low grade coffee has many different designations, from Triage grade to mixed home process coffee. The lowest grade is currently sold for 80 cents per pound. A big buyer is India I am told, for coffee sold by street vendors (where this lot was going at least).One of the final steps before export is yet another round of hand picking. This mill hires over 1200 people to hand sort coffee. It’s actually a good job with protections and benefits, but shows how much labor and intention goes into hand selecting in coffee. Someone likely removed, with their hand each defective bean that would have made your cup taste bad, just as they selected individually the ripe cherry that would make it taste good. That is where quality originates. In selection.2022 Trip to Rwanda Coffee Regions, Farms, Coffee Washing Stations
Thought provoking and informative – thanks for posting this! The point about commodity fetishism obscuring labor (and frankly maybe even doing a little light laundering of exploitation) also made me wonder about alienation. A lot of difficult, under-valued work being done by people who (usually?) aren’t themselves consumers of the product, and a long way from where the capital is accruing. I appreciate you making a case for the primacy of the connection between coffee quality and labor, and I’ll try not to be distracted from this amid the marketing!
Thanks for your comment Ben. Yeah great point and it’s interesting to think of alienated labor with a global product like coffee. I guess in terms of alienated labor in the coffee business, and my mind jumps to baristas and roasters who can’t afford the coffee they serve, or working in a neighborhood you can’t pay rents in … Those people have the option available to participate in the consumption of the end product but they aren’t of the class who can afford it easily. With people who work as day labor at a coffee mill, they really can’t participate in the purchase, so it’s hard to see them as directly disenfranchised, but I guess it happens if what they earn sorting coffee can’t translate into food or clothing at a local market in Rwanda. I could also see it being different if they worked with something that could be locally consumed more readily, like they grew beans or corn (2 things I see a lot around coffee stations in Rwanda. As you say its a long way from where capital accrues, from rural Rwanda to the value additions (real or perceived!) made before final consumption!
Great essay! Just randomly came across this today, but I run a small farm and we talk about very similar themes that you described above.
Thank you! – If you see this reply, would like to know what kind of small farm you run?
Hello again, it is a produce farm. Wide variety of vegetables for direct to market customers but mainly greens, shoots, edible flowers, for wholesale. Sheep as well.
Very centered around human labor. And also selling to a very specific high end market. You can check us out on Instagram @foxholefarmer.
Thanks for doing what you do. We’ve enjoyed everything we’ve had from sweet Maria’s, including the education!
Thank you, Tom. I found this a thought-provoking post, as I do all of your “long reads”. Your “expanded frame” photo essay indeed elevated this reader and gave a deeper context to the weekly coffee roasting. As for your comment “I know few want to have a conversation about commodity fetishism and coffee as I do.”, I do!
Thanks much for your comment Beatrice. I am really appreciative for any one who reads these longer articles. It’s nice to know someone cares enough to keep reading!
Gesha is a long-bean Ethiopia selection with unique cup character. Gesha is the name of the town in Western Ethiopia where the original samples were collected. Spelling it... at 1950 MASLMeters Above Sea Level ... altitude that is...: Meters Above Sea Level, altitude that is... and without labor, skilled and trained labor, you would have a bulk commodity product … I mean, between the wood and dirt flavors you might get a hint of fruit, as you expectorated your first sip. 
A line of sealed plastic yellow barrels for anaerobic fermentation at Punta del Cerro mill in Huehuetenango. Anaerobic simply means "without air", which makes this term that describes..., or Carbonic Maceration, or Black HoneyIn coffee, honey-like sweetness is often found, but we use terms such as refined honey (highly filtered and processed) as opposed to raw honey rustic honey sweetness. This.... I see that on wine labels too. In others words, terms and descriptors that make sense to consumers because they parallel a way another product is sold, in this case an aspirational attachment to a “classy” item like wine, seem to find a place in coffee marketing quite easily. 
7 Responses
Thought provoking and informative – thanks for posting this! The point about commodity fetishism obscuring labor (and frankly maybe even doing a little light laundering of exploitation) also made me wonder about alienation. A lot of difficult, under-valued work being done by people who (usually?) aren’t themselves consumers of the product, and a long way from where the capital is accruing. I appreciate you making a case for the primacy of the connection between coffee quality and labor, and I’ll try not to be distracted from this amid the marketing!
Thanks for your comment Ben. Yeah great point and it’s interesting to think of alienated labor with a global product like coffee. I guess in terms of alienated labor in the coffee business, and my mind jumps to baristas and roasters who can’t afford the coffee they serve, or working in a neighborhood you can’t pay rents in … Those people have the option available to participate in the consumption of the end product but they aren’t of the class who can afford it easily. With people who work as day labor at a coffee mill, they really can’t participate in the purchase, so it’s hard to see them as directly disenfranchised, but I guess it happens if what they earn sorting coffee can’t translate into food or clothing at a local market in Rwanda. I could also see it being different if they worked with something that could be locally consumed more readily, like they grew beans or corn (2 things I see a lot around coffee stations in Rwanda. As you say its a long way from where capital accrues, from rural Rwanda to the value additions (real or perceived!) made before final consumption!
Great essay! Just randomly came across this today, but I run a small farm and we talk about very similar themes that you described above.
Thank you! – If you see this reply, would like to know what kind of small farm you run?
Hello again, it is a produce farm. Wide variety of vegetables for direct to market customers but mainly greens, shoots, edible flowers, for wholesale. Sheep as well.
Very centered around human labor. And also selling to a very specific high end market. You can check us out on Instagram @foxholefarmer.
Thanks for doing what you do. We’ve enjoyed everything we’ve had from sweet Maria’s, including the education!
Thank you, Tom. I found this a thought-provoking post, as I do all of your “long reads”. Your “expanded frame” photo essay indeed elevated this reader and gave a deeper context to the weekly coffee roasting. As for your comment “I know few want to have a conversation about commodity fetishism and coffee as I do.”, I do!
Thanks much for your comment Beatrice. I am really appreciative for any one who reads these longer articles. It’s nice to know someone cares enough to keep reading!