Morgan Noll: Coffee from Colombia to New York

As a barista for the last year and a half and an obsessive coffee drinker, the coffee industry has fascinated me for a long time. With my project “People and Politics in a Colombian Coffee Chain” my goal was to connect my passion for the beverage with the politics of an industry that connects the developing and developed world while putting a face on the human beings that bring this product to life.

I just got back to the states this week to finish tracing one coffee chain from seed to cup at the roaster and café here in New York. While in Colombia I spent a week on a farm that sells a significant portion of their crop to Joe Coffee Company, where I worked as a barista. I spent some time at the warehouse in Tarqui, Colombia where the farmers drop off their coffee. I visited the dry mill in Armenia, Colombia where the coffee makes it transformation from parchment to green coffee ready for shipment and in the Caravela office in Bogota, Colombia where coffee deals are made with cafes around the world and relationships are facilitated between farm and café. Along the way I interviewed the workers at each stage getting a feel for their relationship to the product and to their job. I also witnessed the numerous transformations coffee goes through from the farm to the café and who makes those changes happen.

This chain was a joy to follow and I was thrilled to find people with a true passion for creating quality and artful cups of coffee at every stage of the chain. As a tangible commodity everyone in the chain has a physical relationship with the product even continents apart.