What I love to do – and will share in this blog – is to know and learn more about coffee and share it with other coffee lovers. It’s about every step of the journey. It is not only mechanical, but also, I want to have an eye open for sustainability, social context, and history. My motto is: learn, be aware & enjoy!
Small Bean big Deal
We are drinking the black liquid every day. But do we really know what extent coffee really has? 167 million bags – this is the amount the ICO forecasted the world coffee production for 2018/2019. Let’s check that against blue whales for a scale, this is around 71’500 of the giants. No wonder there are even Spotify lists with the name “Wake up and smell the coffee”.
With a consumption of 7.9kg coffee per person –Switzerland was in the top ten of the coffee consumers, whereas the United States, for example, is nr. 25 (2018). Some coffee cups ahead are the Nordic countries: Finland, Norway, and Iceland are the top three. I am wondering if they have a higher consumption because they rather light roast the beans and drink a lot of filter coffee… however, let’s not get lost and cover the cultural differences over coffee another time!
But those facts are just stating, that coffee is a bigger deal than it looks like. Why I fell in love with coffee is a whole other story. That it is more than just caffeine, it is about the people, the cultures, the different steps behind it. The passion I’ve seen so far from so many different people is impressive. Sometimes the preparation of the coffee feels like art and it is about consciousness, about time and consequences of your doing. And the tasting of great quality coffee from someone skilled is just another dimension than a coffee out of a capsule.
The Coffee Journey
Your coffee this morning had a long journey. The National Coffee Association of the USA describes 10 steps from seed to cup. So, there is a lot of interesting work going on behind it. Let me break it down to the essential steps for you. It is all about the farmers, the producer (exporter, roasters etc.), the retailer (shops, coffee shops) and the consumer. And exactly those and more will be covered in the next weeks in this blog.
Are you ready to go one step further than caffeine?
My Steps Towards Coffee
With 16 years, I couldn’t stand coffee at all. With the time I started to drink coffee out of social context – and to be honest it was more about the milk than the coffee itself. And don’t get me wrong; caffeine did quite a good job in my studies. But what changed? Someone skilled made me a great and high-quality coffee. Appreciation of sourness, hazelnut or chocolate note was just the beginning. Where I started to love coffee? Colombia. I experienced the care of the farmers, the different approaches, learned from a great barista how to do it right and what is important, when you prepare your coffee.
And now I have the mess. I barely can find a decent coffee in Switzerland.
Your Weekly Random Fact about Coffee
Bored to talk about the weather? Use this random fact about coffee in a moment of silence!
In case of war, natural catastrophes and other crises, the Swiss authorities have a storage of 13.500 tons of coffee.
Yeah well, they figured if we are already in a state of crisis, let’s not push it, if “Joseph doesn’t have his coffee in the morning….”.
So what about you? Is coffee an elixir of live for you? And/ or are you a pure coffee lover? so join me! and push whichever button out of the thousands of buttons is needed to follow me, and we can do this journey of coffee together.
Want to know more? Check those links out
Caffeine – The most common drug on the world – let’s get rid of some rumors
Coffee Friends – Video’s to see the passion of other coffee lovers
Eavesdropping – Passion shared in a podcast – with the vision to conquer the world with good coffee
I just realised that the coffee you used to make for me is finite. Do you still have Colombian coffee or are we closing in on using that emergency storage from our government?