Omnivore (2024) s01e07 Episode Script
Coffee
[alarm clock beeping]
[beeping stops]
[Redzepi] Listen closely.
- [coffee beans rattling]
- [coffee machine whirring]
It's the world waking up
to coffee.
I need coffee.
It's hard to imagine
a day without it.
And I'm not alone.
We drink coffee across
all corners of the planet,
nearly three
billion times a day.
A global addiction.
The siren song of coffee holds
a curious place in our lives.
Familiar, yet mysterious.
Its story still largely unknown.
But every cup has
a story to tell.
Let's go to a place
that's seen the best
and the worst of what
that cup of coffee can be.
We'll trace the path
of a singular bean,
from its cradle in
the hills of Rwanda
to a roaster in
the American South,
to see the symphony of human
endeavor, of toil and sweat,
of skilled hands that
pick, sort and roast.
All of the lives intertwined
in bringing us that
fleeting moment of joy.
The everyday miracle of coffee.
The story of coffee is
less a tale of tastes
than it is a history
of stimulation.
That includes the mythical
story of coffee's origins.
As legend has it,
a ninth-century Ethiopian
goat herder named Kaldi
was roaming the cloud forests
when he came upon his flock
snacking on a small red fruit.
They were restless, animated, nearly
levitating off the forest floor.
The bewildered goat
herder gathered the fruit
and brought it to
a nearby monastery.
The monks roasted and
boiled the mysterious buds
and found themselves possessed
by this new religious fervor.
The miracle of coffee was born.
What happens when that first
sip of coffee hits our lips?
Dopamine floods the brain.
Our hearts beat faster.
Our central nervous
system awakens.
Make no mistake about it,
coffee is a mind-, body-
and mood-altering substance,
a vehicle for caffeine, the most widely
consumed psychoactive drug in the world.
Our addiction has made coffee one of
the most traded commodities on earth,
cultivated across
nearly half the globe.
Our thirst for this ingredient,
reshaping the economies,
landscapes and lives
of entire nations.
Few places have seen such a
spectacular rebirth as Rwanda.
In the span of 30 years,
coffee in Rwanda has gone from being
a source of pain and oppression
to the engine behind one of the most
remarkable economic transformations
of the 21st century.
[farmer, in
Kinyarwanda] How is it?
[farmer 2] Not bad.
[chuckles]
It's the highest quality.
We're going to plant
a new coffee variety.
[farmer 2] Near Murunda?
Near the foothills.
[Justin] When coffee was
introduced in Rwanda,
my family was among the
first coffee farmers.
I inherited growing
coffee from my parents.
When I was young, I remember that
we had three small plantations
with around 1,000 coffee trees.
At that time, I was sure the only
way to earn money was growing coffee.
So, when I had Willy,
I decided that I should
teach him to grow coffee,
so he knows how to look after
coffee, the work it takes,
learns the benefits
and learns to love it.
So when I grow old and
can't do it anymore myself,
he can take over the tradition.
[Willy, in English] I never
dreamt of doing this business.
But my father, he's that person
who can make you love something
and learn more
through the process.
Rwandan soil is very
good for coffee.
Plus the altitude, because coffee
from the higher mountains is better.
[Redzepi] These branches,
a flush with cherries,
each cradling the future of your
next cappuccino in its flesh,
because coffee is a fruit,
and the beans we
brew are its seeds.
Each cherry ripens
at its own pace,
even on the same branch.
The most dedicated
specialty coffee growers
will revisit the same tree
repeatedly over weeks,
favoring quality over quantity.
[Willy] In Rwanda, all the
coffee picking is done by hand.
They pick only
ripe, red cherries.
If one picker mixes red, yellow,
and another picker picks
only ripe, red cherries,
the quality in the
cup will be different.
So you see, that's the difference
with Rwandan specialty coffee,
the human effort.
[Redzepi] From the moment the cherry
is picked, the clock starts ticking.
And time shows no mercy
towards the delicate fruit
that can spoil within hours.
The journey of coffee is as
varied as it is challenging.
Coffee plants thrive in the
heart of the coffee belt,
a collection of countries
hugging the equator.
For these places, coffee
is more than an ingredient.
It's a global commodity bought and
sold like steel, cotton or crude oil.
Its journey from seed to cup is
dictated by efficiency, consistency,
and the ever-shifting
tides of the marketplace,
always thirsty for more coffee.
This relentless demand
places a huge burden
on the people behind
our daily ritual.
[worker, in Kinyarwanda]
Put it on the scale.
[Redzepi, in English] Which
makes the work they do
to keep every link in the coffee
chain intact all the more miraculous.
[workers chattering]
[Redzepi] The difference between
a decent brew and the finest cup
comes down to human touch.
A mind-blowing 30 to
40 different people,
each a master of one
specific leg of the journey.
And every palm it passes through
is a crossroads between
success and failure.
The process here is incredible.
Once the cherries are brought
to the washing station,
they're depulped to separate
their fruit from the bean inside.
Then they're fermented to remove the
sticky mucilage and develop flavor.
Next, the coffee is graded.
Directed to water channels
where lighter beans float,
while the heavier, higher quality
ones sink and move through.
Finally, the beans are laid
out on long, raised beds
to dry under the blazing sun.
As you can see, it's not
about expensive equipment.
It's the eyes, the hands
and the collective knowledge of the
people that make the difference.
From this fine-tuned process,
emerges what many consider to be
some of the best coffee anywhere.
[sniffs]
[Willy] Lemon, oranges,
cashew nuts, and chocolates.
Those are the common fruits
that many people find
in their coffee
from this region.
"The farmers, when they deliver coffee,
they want to know, "How is our coffee?
How did it go? What did I miss?
"What do I have to improve next
time while harvesting or sorting?"
Every region, we have to give
them feedback about their coffee.
I want the community in Mahembe, the
coffee farmers, to live a good life
equal to the efforts
they put into farming.
[coffee expert] We're all connected
through the products we consume.
Coffee's a great example.
I liken it to a
very colorful quilt
that stitches people together in a
way that they wouldn't otherwise.
[Redzepi] Originally
from Rwanda,
Arthur Karuletwa has made
it his life's mission
to fight for the people
who produce our coffee.
Nowadays, the gap between farm and
table is a void that keeps expanding.
Most coffee is
destined for obscurity,
severed from its roots, its history
and the hands that nurtured it.
A story of disconnect in our
relentless quest for convenience.
But that convenience
comes at a cost,
especially to the farmers
tasked with keeping the world
caffeinated at bargain prices,
always asked to
do more for less,
even in the face of an
ever-shifting climate
and the push and pull
of the global market.
And now farmers are starting to walk
away from an industry that's failed them
at a time when we drink
more coffee than ever.
But there is a road
map for improvement.
Rwanda is carving out a path.
The cooperative model favored
here can be a lifeline
promising a better livelihood
for the people who deserve it.
Much of that is
thanks to Arthur.
A man who, in the early 2000s,
was already laying the bricks
for specialty coffee in Rwanda.
Arthur is one of those
rare kinds of people
who catalyzes real change.
[Arthur] It's a story about our belief
in the power of human connection,
about what happens when we
replace labels with faces
and how global transformation starts
when people have a one-to-one connection.
[Redzepi] His mission is to trace
the beans' journey from tree to cup,
ensuring that all the
contributors in the coffee chain
are recognized and
rewarded for their efforts.
[in Kinyarwanda] Hey,
Justin! How are you doing?
- I am fine.
- Long time!
- Thanks for paying us a visit.
- Yeah!
Tell me about your
relationship with your farmers.
[Justin] Our goal is to help
educate them as much as possible,
so they can make
the best coffee.
That's valuable information for
me to have to take to the markets.
As a Rwandan, I take pride
in selling coffee abroad
and delivering it to those who
truly appreciate and enjoy it.
The immense pride it
brings me is beyond words.
[continues speaking
indistinctly]
[Arthur, in English] When I work
with producers like Mahembe,
I'm diving into a lot
of personal aspects.
How much are you paying farmers?
How are you treating them?
You can't have a quality
coffee on the table
and not expect to see a quality
of life for the people who grow it
and the communities that
are sustained by it.
Justin and Willy, they've nurtured
the community in a way that
quality of life is
important to 'em.
It is a beautiful thing
that deserves amplification.
[Redzepi] Coffee isn't
native to Rwanda.
In fact, it's indigenous to only a
small part of Ethiopia and South Sudan.
So, how did it come to dominate so
many countries around the globe?
Its spread outside Africa
and the Middle East
began in the 1600s
with an unlikely hero,
a trader named Baba Budan,
who strapped seven fresh
coffee beans to his stomach
before smuggling them from
Yemen back to his native India.
Soon, coffee was being
cultivated across Asia.
As coffee production spread eastward,
coffee consumption moved ever westward
from Mocha to Mecca,
Cairo to Constantinople
and eventually to Venice,
where coffee bubbled up in 1615
marking its arrival in Europe.
It replaced beer and wine as the
breakfast beverage of choice.
Not surprisingly,
productivity skyrocketed.
For the power brokers,
coffee's explosive popularity
begged a larger question:
why purchase it, when they
could control the supply?
The Dutch led the way,
installing plantations in their colonies
in the East Indies, notably Java.
Other countries
quickly followed suit.
Around the world from Brazil
to Africa to the Caribbean,
European empires forced their
colonies to grow their commodity crop.
[Arthur] Rwanda was first colonized
by Germany and then Belgium.
I don't think anybody knew
Rwanda produced coffee
because coffee went
straight to Belgium.
Not a single acknowledgement
that it came from Rwanda.
It was grown, harvested, processed
and picked with this slave mentality.
The colonial introduction of
coffee stipulated three laws.
One: grow it.
It didn't matter if you
had a ten-by-ten backyard
that you grew your
food crops in.
You had to find space
for the cash crop.
Two: never cut the tree down
without getting permission.
And the third was: coffee
was illegal to consume.
We were mandated
not to drink it.
Now, imagine what that does
to a nation and a people.
The burden and pain
of producing a product
that you can't rely on
economically or even socially.
[Redzepi] For most of its
coffee-growing history,
Rwanda was forced to focus
on quantity, not quality.
Rwandan farmers had no choice
but to sell their coffee at
the lowest commodity price.
But in the late 1980s, the
world's coffee prices crashed.
Producing countries slipped
into devastating poverty.
Few were hit as hard as Rwanda,
already reeling from a growing
tide of ethnic division.
The ensuing years saw political
unrest and economic desperation,
which culminated in
the 1994 genocide.
[news reporter] Extremists from
the dominant Hutu ethnic group
began a 100-day killing spree to
rid the country of minority Tutsis.
[news reporter 2] Upwards of 800,000
people were killed in just 100 days.
[news reporter 3] It was mass
murder on a scale not seen
since the Second World War.
[Willy] During the genocide,
they burned everything.
Even the coffee farm was burned.
The house was demolished.
[Justin, in Kinyarwanda]
There were 27 households
on that hill where we
lived, more than 200 people.
All those households
were of the same family.
Only four of us survived.
[Willy, in English] My grandpa and
grandma passed away during the genocide.
My father went to Kigali, did
some little business in transport.
But deep, deep down, he had
that feeling of coming back
and doing what his
father used to do.
[Arthur] After 1994, I
spent the next couple years
trying to figure out why
did the genocide happen?
How could it happen that fast?
I came to the conclusion that at
the heart of it all was poverty.
That is the brink at which
these commodities, like coffee,
took my country into in 1994.
Coffee, amongst other things,
of course, had a role to play.
Its introduction and its processes
sustained this poverty cycle.
But in the aftermath
of the genocide,
we also realized that coffee
was a tool to reconcile.
[farmer, in Kinyarwanda]
Forty-four. Forty-four, Majya!
[farmer 2] Yes!
[farmer] Watch out, the
sack may fall on top of you.
[grunts]
- This time it is thirty-two.
- All right!
[Arthur, in English] Coffee is the
product that's going to fill the void.
- [farmer 2, in Kinyarwanda] Number?
- Forty-five.
[Arthur, in English] There only used
to be three washing stations in Rwanda.
So we went from three to
330 around the country.
- [farmer 2] Number?
- [farmer, in Kinyarwanda] Thirty!
[Arthur, in English] So that
we could have 330 places
where people could
come together,
bonded around a common goal.
[farmer 3] Fifteen.
[farmer 2] All right!
[Arthur] We knew that was
the beginning of healing.
We picked coffee in silence,
we brought it to the
mills in silence,
but we processed
it in conversation.
And by the time we shipped it, we made
sure we were embracing each other.
Tupac has an incredible
song where he says that
a rose is growing
out of concrete.
That is Rwandan coffee.
With coffee, we see our humanity
through an illuminating lens.
Both the darkness and the light.
By working together,
shoulder to shoulder
to improve the quality of
their coffee and processes,
thousands of Rwandan farmers
found a path out of poverty.
Every country that grows coffee
experiences its perils and declines,
but what happened in
Rwanda really gave hope
that coffee could be a
catalyst for a better future.
[Redzepi] The farmers
and producers of Rwanda
have undertaken the first huge
piece of coffee's transformation.
But the journey of these
beans is far from over.
It will go through a vast network
of brokers and auctioneers,
burlap sacks hustled onto bikes,
loaded into the backs
of trucks and trains,
and shipped in cargo holds by
the millions across the planet.
Some of these Rwandan coffee
beans are on their way to Sydney.
Others to Singapore.
As for our beans, they're destined for
a special corner of the American South.
[Areli] Roasters have a
lot of responsibility,
but every roasting
book that you read,
it's like, "You've gotta
start with great coffee."
You can't make bad coffee good.
You gotta start
with great quality.
Little Waves is
our coffee roastery
where we really focus on
creating relationships
with coffee producers
all around the world.
We feel that coffee, when
it shows up to our doorstep,
it has its own essence, it
has its own flavor profile,
and it's up to us to get
the best flavor out of it.
[Redzepi] An expert roaster can elevate
good beans into the extraordinary.
But given the high heat
and the heavy machinery,
seconds can separate capturing
the sweet spot of our beans
or ruining the hard work of the
dozens who brought them to this point.
Within a mere 12 minutes
it takes to roast a bean
from pale to golden brown
lies entire weather systems,
people's hopes and dreams
and countless hours of work.
[Areli] You could
overdevelop it,
where it's kind of
flat and papery.
You could under-develop it,
where you're lacking
body, lacking sweetness,
literally just tasting
like grass and hay.
Every step of the way,
everything has to be perfect.
[Redzepi] Personally, I
prefer my roast light,
teeming with fruity notes and acidity,
hints of raspberry and lavender.
For me, a good coffee is
like a great glass of wine.
It might seem
far-fetched to some,
but when you consider
all the people,
all the effort that goes into
making a good cup of coffee,
it's hard not to
see the connection.
[chattering, chuckling]
- [Areli] Hey, Arthur!
- Hey.
- How's it going?
- Hey. Welcome to Durham.
Thanks for having me.
[Redzepi] To get to this point, this
little fruit has crossed continents,
traversed oceans and passed through
the hands of dozens of people.
[Arthur] It's got that nice
beautiful greenish-blueish hue.
It's a way of saying,
"I'm here, I'm clean,
I've been well-processed."
The stories it could
tell are fascinating.
[Redzepi] Every hand that
touches coffee adds to its value.
But like so much of
the food we consume,
the value is rarely passed back.
Coffee farmers keep just 1% of
the price you pay for your cup.
A disparity that people in
the specialty coffee world
are hoping to improve.
[Areli] The conversation that
is happening in our industry is,
how do we share the risks
so that producers have a lot more
say and a lot more protection?
[Arthur] Coffee reveals its
true beauty if it's equitable.
We have to be rewarding
everyone behind that coffee.
That starts with a farmer being
recognized and acknowledged and seen.
[Redzepi] Twenty years ago,
specialty coffee was a niche.
Now it's a $25 billion business
and it's expected
to double by 2030,
proof that people are
willing to pay for quality.
Coffee has never been more
delicious than it is today.
[no audible dialogue]
And so much of that
hinges on the brew.
If you tried coffee
500 years ago
in the early coffee houses of
Europe and the Middle East,
you probably wouldn't
recognize it.
Boiled, bitter, over-extracted,
the quality of the
coffee wasn't the point.
The ritual, the
revelry, the buzz,
that's what kept
the coffee brewing.
It wasn't until the 20th century
that coffee technology
began to reshape the drink
and the places where
people drink it.
In 1908, a German housewife
invented the pour over,
a method still used today for a
lighter, more delicate flavor.
My favorite, actually.
Only a few years earlier,
two Italian engineers had come
up with a high-pressure system
to filter hot water
through finely-ground beans
for a faster, stronger cup
giving us the gift of espresso.
The drinks and
techniques kept coming:
latte, cappuccino,
AeroPress, frappéd, instant,
iced, frothed, shaken,
pressed, infused, sweetened.
A coffee order for every season,
every mood and every person.
An individual expression of us.
[Arthur] If you drink coffee every
day, you are already making an impact.
We all do it,
unbeknownst to ourselves.
It's really hard to consume
a product enough times
without building an
inquisition about it.
And usually the first inquisition
is, "Where is this from?"
I perceive how you brew coffee,
paying homage to where it's
grown and the people who grow it.
Its flora, its fauna
the smell of the red
dirt after a slight rain.
The flowerings of
surrounding crops.
Children laughing,
women singing.
What we can learn from coffee is that
the things we consume matter so much.
Seismic change can happen
through the ease of
just drinking something.
[sniffs]
[coffee machine grinding]
So how do you take your coffee?
Slow-dripped in a quiet café?
Pushed through a
pod in your kitchen?
Or maybe crafted by
the hands of an expert?
That's the beauty of coffee.
There's no wrong way.
But what if every so often
we do more than drink coffee?
We try to understand and appreciate,
for a few fleeting moments,
the people, the skill, the
collaboration that go into its creation.
This one simple act
can make the daily grind
a bit more meaningful.
Maybe even
a bit more miraculous.
[Redzepi sniffs] Mmm.
[beeping stops]
[Redzepi] Listen closely.
- [coffee beans rattling]
- [coffee machine whirring]
It's the world waking up
to coffee.
I need coffee.
It's hard to imagine
a day without it.
And I'm not alone.
We drink coffee across
all corners of the planet,
nearly three
billion times a day.
A global addiction.
The siren song of coffee holds
a curious place in our lives.
Familiar, yet mysterious.
Its story still largely unknown.
But every cup has
a story to tell.
Let's go to a place
that's seen the best
and the worst of what
that cup of coffee can be.
We'll trace the path
of a singular bean,
from its cradle in
the hills of Rwanda
to a roaster in
the American South,
to see the symphony of human
endeavor, of toil and sweat,
of skilled hands that
pick, sort and roast.
All of the lives intertwined
in bringing us that
fleeting moment of joy.
The everyday miracle of coffee.
The story of coffee is
less a tale of tastes
than it is a history
of stimulation.
That includes the mythical
story of coffee's origins.
As legend has it,
a ninth-century Ethiopian
goat herder named Kaldi
was roaming the cloud forests
when he came upon his flock
snacking on a small red fruit.
They were restless, animated, nearly
levitating off the forest floor.
The bewildered goat
herder gathered the fruit
and brought it to
a nearby monastery.
The monks roasted and
boiled the mysterious buds
and found themselves possessed
by this new religious fervor.
The miracle of coffee was born.
What happens when that first
sip of coffee hits our lips?
Dopamine floods the brain.
Our hearts beat faster.
Our central nervous
system awakens.
Make no mistake about it,
coffee is a mind-, body-
and mood-altering substance,
a vehicle for caffeine, the most widely
consumed psychoactive drug in the world.
Our addiction has made coffee one of
the most traded commodities on earth,
cultivated across
nearly half the globe.
Our thirst for this ingredient,
reshaping the economies,
landscapes and lives
of entire nations.
Few places have seen such a
spectacular rebirth as Rwanda.
In the span of 30 years,
coffee in Rwanda has gone from being
a source of pain and oppression
to the engine behind one of the most
remarkable economic transformations
of the 21st century.
[farmer, in
Kinyarwanda] How is it?
[farmer 2] Not bad.
[chuckles]
It's the highest quality.
We're going to plant
a new coffee variety.
[farmer 2] Near Murunda?
Near the foothills.
[Justin] When coffee was
introduced in Rwanda,
my family was among the
first coffee farmers.
I inherited growing
coffee from my parents.
When I was young, I remember that
we had three small plantations
with around 1,000 coffee trees.
At that time, I was sure the only
way to earn money was growing coffee.
So, when I had Willy,
I decided that I should
teach him to grow coffee,
so he knows how to look after
coffee, the work it takes,
learns the benefits
and learns to love it.
So when I grow old and
can't do it anymore myself,
he can take over the tradition.
[Willy, in English] I never
dreamt of doing this business.
But my father, he's that person
who can make you love something
and learn more
through the process.
Rwandan soil is very
good for coffee.
Plus the altitude, because coffee
from the higher mountains is better.
[Redzepi] These branches,
a flush with cherries,
each cradling the future of your
next cappuccino in its flesh,
because coffee is a fruit,
and the beans we
brew are its seeds.
Each cherry ripens
at its own pace,
even on the same branch.
The most dedicated
specialty coffee growers
will revisit the same tree
repeatedly over weeks,
favoring quality over quantity.
[Willy] In Rwanda, all the
coffee picking is done by hand.
They pick only
ripe, red cherries.
If one picker mixes red, yellow,
and another picker picks
only ripe, red cherries,
the quality in the
cup will be different.
So you see, that's the difference
with Rwandan specialty coffee,
the human effort.
[Redzepi] From the moment the cherry
is picked, the clock starts ticking.
And time shows no mercy
towards the delicate fruit
that can spoil within hours.
The journey of coffee is as
varied as it is challenging.
Coffee plants thrive in the
heart of the coffee belt,
a collection of countries
hugging the equator.
For these places, coffee
is more than an ingredient.
It's a global commodity bought and
sold like steel, cotton or crude oil.
Its journey from seed to cup is
dictated by efficiency, consistency,
and the ever-shifting
tides of the marketplace,
always thirsty for more coffee.
This relentless demand
places a huge burden
on the people behind
our daily ritual.
[worker, in Kinyarwanda]
Put it on the scale.
[Redzepi, in English] Which
makes the work they do
to keep every link in the coffee
chain intact all the more miraculous.
[workers chattering]
[Redzepi] The difference between
a decent brew and the finest cup
comes down to human touch.
A mind-blowing 30 to
40 different people,
each a master of one
specific leg of the journey.
And every palm it passes through
is a crossroads between
success and failure.
The process here is incredible.
Once the cherries are brought
to the washing station,
they're depulped to separate
their fruit from the bean inside.
Then they're fermented to remove the
sticky mucilage and develop flavor.
Next, the coffee is graded.
Directed to water channels
where lighter beans float,
while the heavier, higher quality
ones sink and move through.
Finally, the beans are laid
out on long, raised beds
to dry under the blazing sun.
As you can see, it's not
about expensive equipment.
It's the eyes, the hands
and the collective knowledge of the
people that make the difference.
From this fine-tuned process,
emerges what many consider to be
some of the best coffee anywhere.
[sniffs]
[Willy] Lemon, oranges,
cashew nuts, and chocolates.
Those are the common fruits
that many people find
in their coffee
from this region.
"The farmers, when they deliver coffee,
they want to know, "How is our coffee?
How did it go? What did I miss?
"What do I have to improve next
time while harvesting or sorting?"
Every region, we have to give
them feedback about their coffee.
I want the community in Mahembe, the
coffee farmers, to live a good life
equal to the efforts
they put into farming.
[coffee expert] We're all connected
through the products we consume.
Coffee's a great example.
I liken it to a
very colorful quilt
that stitches people together in a
way that they wouldn't otherwise.
[Redzepi] Originally
from Rwanda,
Arthur Karuletwa has made
it his life's mission
to fight for the people
who produce our coffee.
Nowadays, the gap between farm and
table is a void that keeps expanding.
Most coffee is
destined for obscurity,
severed from its roots, its history
and the hands that nurtured it.
A story of disconnect in our
relentless quest for convenience.
But that convenience
comes at a cost,
especially to the farmers
tasked with keeping the world
caffeinated at bargain prices,
always asked to
do more for less,
even in the face of an
ever-shifting climate
and the push and pull
of the global market.
And now farmers are starting to walk
away from an industry that's failed them
at a time when we drink
more coffee than ever.
But there is a road
map for improvement.
Rwanda is carving out a path.
The cooperative model favored
here can be a lifeline
promising a better livelihood
for the people who deserve it.
Much of that is
thanks to Arthur.
A man who, in the early 2000s,
was already laying the bricks
for specialty coffee in Rwanda.
Arthur is one of those
rare kinds of people
who catalyzes real change.
[Arthur] It's a story about our belief
in the power of human connection,
about what happens when we
replace labels with faces
and how global transformation starts
when people have a one-to-one connection.
[Redzepi] His mission is to trace
the beans' journey from tree to cup,
ensuring that all the
contributors in the coffee chain
are recognized and
rewarded for their efforts.
[in Kinyarwanda] Hey,
Justin! How are you doing?
- I am fine.
- Long time!
- Thanks for paying us a visit.
- Yeah!
Tell me about your
relationship with your farmers.
[Justin] Our goal is to help
educate them as much as possible,
so they can make
the best coffee.
That's valuable information for
me to have to take to the markets.
As a Rwandan, I take pride
in selling coffee abroad
and delivering it to those who
truly appreciate and enjoy it.
The immense pride it
brings me is beyond words.
[continues speaking
indistinctly]
[Arthur, in English] When I work
with producers like Mahembe,
I'm diving into a lot
of personal aspects.
How much are you paying farmers?
How are you treating them?
You can't have a quality
coffee on the table
and not expect to see a quality
of life for the people who grow it
and the communities that
are sustained by it.
Justin and Willy, they've nurtured
the community in a way that
quality of life is
important to 'em.
It is a beautiful thing
that deserves amplification.
[Redzepi] Coffee isn't
native to Rwanda.
In fact, it's indigenous to only a
small part of Ethiopia and South Sudan.
So, how did it come to dominate so
many countries around the globe?
Its spread outside Africa
and the Middle East
began in the 1600s
with an unlikely hero,
a trader named Baba Budan,
who strapped seven fresh
coffee beans to his stomach
before smuggling them from
Yemen back to his native India.
Soon, coffee was being
cultivated across Asia.
As coffee production spread eastward,
coffee consumption moved ever westward
from Mocha to Mecca,
Cairo to Constantinople
and eventually to Venice,
where coffee bubbled up in 1615
marking its arrival in Europe.
It replaced beer and wine as the
breakfast beverage of choice.
Not surprisingly,
productivity skyrocketed.
For the power brokers,
coffee's explosive popularity
begged a larger question:
why purchase it, when they
could control the supply?
The Dutch led the way,
installing plantations in their colonies
in the East Indies, notably Java.
Other countries
quickly followed suit.
Around the world from Brazil
to Africa to the Caribbean,
European empires forced their
colonies to grow their commodity crop.
[Arthur] Rwanda was first colonized
by Germany and then Belgium.
I don't think anybody knew
Rwanda produced coffee
because coffee went
straight to Belgium.
Not a single acknowledgement
that it came from Rwanda.
It was grown, harvested, processed
and picked with this slave mentality.
The colonial introduction of
coffee stipulated three laws.
One: grow it.
It didn't matter if you
had a ten-by-ten backyard
that you grew your
food crops in.
You had to find space
for the cash crop.
Two: never cut the tree down
without getting permission.
And the third was: coffee
was illegal to consume.
We were mandated
not to drink it.
Now, imagine what that does
to a nation and a people.
The burden and pain
of producing a product
that you can't rely on
economically or even socially.
[Redzepi] For most of its
coffee-growing history,
Rwanda was forced to focus
on quantity, not quality.
Rwandan farmers had no choice
but to sell their coffee at
the lowest commodity price.
But in the late 1980s, the
world's coffee prices crashed.
Producing countries slipped
into devastating poverty.
Few were hit as hard as Rwanda,
already reeling from a growing
tide of ethnic division.
The ensuing years saw political
unrest and economic desperation,
which culminated in
the 1994 genocide.
[news reporter] Extremists from
the dominant Hutu ethnic group
began a 100-day killing spree to
rid the country of minority Tutsis.
[news reporter 2] Upwards of 800,000
people were killed in just 100 days.
[news reporter 3] It was mass
murder on a scale not seen
since the Second World War.
[Willy] During the genocide,
they burned everything.
Even the coffee farm was burned.
The house was demolished.
[Justin, in Kinyarwanda]
There were 27 households
on that hill where we
lived, more than 200 people.
All those households
were of the same family.
Only four of us survived.
[Willy, in English] My grandpa and
grandma passed away during the genocide.
My father went to Kigali, did
some little business in transport.
But deep, deep down, he had
that feeling of coming back
and doing what his
father used to do.
[Arthur] After 1994, I
spent the next couple years
trying to figure out why
did the genocide happen?
How could it happen that fast?
I came to the conclusion that at
the heart of it all was poverty.
That is the brink at which
these commodities, like coffee,
took my country into in 1994.
Coffee, amongst other things,
of course, had a role to play.
Its introduction and its processes
sustained this poverty cycle.
But in the aftermath
of the genocide,
we also realized that coffee
was a tool to reconcile.
[farmer, in Kinyarwanda]
Forty-four. Forty-four, Majya!
[farmer 2] Yes!
[farmer] Watch out, the
sack may fall on top of you.
[grunts]
- This time it is thirty-two.
- All right!
[Arthur, in English] Coffee is the
product that's going to fill the void.
- [farmer 2, in Kinyarwanda] Number?
- Forty-five.
[Arthur, in English] There only used
to be three washing stations in Rwanda.
So we went from three to
330 around the country.
- [farmer 2] Number?
- [farmer, in Kinyarwanda] Thirty!
[Arthur, in English] So that
we could have 330 places
where people could
come together,
bonded around a common goal.
[farmer 3] Fifteen.
[farmer 2] All right!
[Arthur] We knew that was
the beginning of healing.
We picked coffee in silence,
we brought it to the
mills in silence,
but we processed
it in conversation.
And by the time we shipped it, we made
sure we were embracing each other.
Tupac has an incredible
song where he says that
a rose is growing
out of concrete.
That is Rwandan coffee.
With coffee, we see our humanity
through an illuminating lens.
Both the darkness and the light.
By working together,
shoulder to shoulder
to improve the quality of
their coffee and processes,
thousands of Rwandan farmers
found a path out of poverty.
Every country that grows coffee
experiences its perils and declines,
but what happened in
Rwanda really gave hope
that coffee could be a
catalyst for a better future.
[Redzepi] The farmers
and producers of Rwanda
have undertaken the first huge
piece of coffee's transformation.
But the journey of these
beans is far from over.
It will go through a vast network
of brokers and auctioneers,
burlap sacks hustled onto bikes,
loaded into the backs
of trucks and trains,
and shipped in cargo holds by
the millions across the planet.
Some of these Rwandan coffee
beans are on their way to Sydney.
Others to Singapore.
As for our beans, they're destined for
a special corner of the American South.
[Areli] Roasters have a
lot of responsibility,
but every roasting
book that you read,
it's like, "You've gotta
start with great coffee."
You can't make bad coffee good.
You gotta start
with great quality.
Little Waves is
our coffee roastery
where we really focus on
creating relationships
with coffee producers
all around the world.
We feel that coffee, when
it shows up to our doorstep,
it has its own essence, it
has its own flavor profile,
and it's up to us to get
the best flavor out of it.
[Redzepi] An expert roaster can elevate
good beans into the extraordinary.
But given the high heat
and the heavy machinery,
seconds can separate capturing
the sweet spot of our beans
or ruining the hard work of the
dozens who brought them to this point.
Within a mere 12 minutes
it takes to roast a bean
from pale to golden brown
lies entire weather systems,
people's hopes and dreams
and countless hours of work.
[Areli] You could
overdevelop it,
where it's kind of
flat and papery.
You could under-develop it,
where you're lacking
body, lacking sweetness,
literally just tasting
like grass and hay.
Every step of the way,
everything has to be perfect.
[Redzepi] Personally, I
prefer my roast light,
teeming with fruity notes and acidity,
hints of raspberry and lavender.
For me, a good coffee is
like a great glass of wine.
It might seem
far-fetched to some,
but when you consider
all the people,
all the effort that goes into
making a good cup of coffee,
it's hard not to
see the connection.
[chattering, chuckling]
- [Areli] Hey, Arthur!
- Hey.
- How's it going?
- Hey. Welcome to Durham.
Thanks for having me.
[Redzepi] To get to this point, this
little fruit has crossed continents,
traversed oceans and passed through
the hands of dozens of people.
[Arthur] It's got that nice
beautiful greenish-blueish hue.
It's a way of saying,
"I'm here, I'm clean,
I've been well-processed."
The stories it could
tell are fascinating.
[Redzepi] Every hand that
touches coffee adds to its value.
But like so much of
the food we consume,
the value is rarely passed back.
Coffee farmers keep just 1% of
the price you pay for your cup.
A disparity that people in
the specialty coffee world
are hoping to improve.
[Areli] The conversation that
is happening in our industry is,
how do we share the risks
so that producers have a lot more
say and a lot more protection?
[Arthur] Coffee reveals its
true beauty if it's equitable.
We have to be rewarding
everyone behind that coffee.
That starts with a farmer being
recognized and acknowledged and seen.
[Redzepi] Twenty years ago,
specialty coffee was a niche.
Now it's a $25 billion business
and it's expected
to double by 2030,
proof that people are
willing to pay for quality.
Coffee has never been more
delicious than it is today.
[no audible dialogue]
And so much of that
hinges on the brew.
If you tried coffee
500 years ago
in the early coffee houses of
Europe and the Middle East,
you probably wouldn't
recognize it.
Boiled, bitter, over-extracted,
the quality of the
coffee wasn't the point.
The ritual, the
revelry, the buzz,
that's what kept
the coffee brewing.
It wasn't until the 20th century
that coffee technology
began to reshape the drink
and the places where
people drink it.
In 1908, a German housewife
invented the pour over,
a method still used today for a
lighter, more delicate flavor.
My favorite, actually.
Only a few years earlier,
two Italian engineers had come
up with a high-pressure system
to filter hot water
through finely-ground beans
for a faster, stronger cup
giving us the gift of espresso.
The drinks and
techniques kept coming:
latte, cappuccino,
AeroPress, frappéd, instant,
iced, frothed, shaken,
pressed, infused, sweetened.
A coffee order for every season,
every mood and every person.
An individual expression of us.
[Arthur] If you drink coffee every
day, you are already making an impact.
We all do it,
unbeknownst to ourselves.
It's really hard to consume
a product enough times
without building an
inquisition about it.
And usually the first inquisition
is, "Where is this from?"
I perceive how you brew coffee,
paying homage to where it's
grown and the people who grow it.
Its flora, its fauna
the smell of the red
dirt after a slight rain.
The flowerings of
surrounding crops.
Children laughing,
women singing.
What we can learn from coffee is that
the things we consume matter so much.
Seismic change can happen
through the ease of
just drinking something.
[sniffs]
[coffee machine grinding]
So how do you take your coffee?
Slow-dripped in a quiet café?
Pushed through a
pod in your kitchen?
Or maybe crafted by
the hands of an expert?
That's the beauty of coffee.
There's no wrong way.
But what if every so often
we do more than drink coffee?
We try to understand and appreciate,
for a few fleeting moments,
the people, the skill, the
collaboration that go into its creation.
This one simple act
can make the daily grind
a bit more meaningful.
Maybe even
a bit more miraculous.
[Redzepi sniffs] Mmm.