Hi Friend!
Can you imagine a morning without the scent of your morning coffee brewing, or a Happy Hour without a cocktail?
That kind of dystopian world is one I don’t want to live in – yet some global challenges are threatening the land and the people who make these beverages possible.
To share these stories with you, I’ve created this blog to dig deeper into what’s really going on behind, in, and through your drinks.
Although often focused on coffee, this blog will also feature beverages made possible because of other crops harvested in the coffee-lands – crops such as sugar, cacao, and tea – the crops essential to so many of the world’s best beverages!
I call these the “beverage crops.” Many of us who grew up in North America or Europe might not think about the fact that many of the drinks we consume are based on the production of fruits and plants that require the human labor of – in the case of coffee – more than 25 million people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia – what’s sometimes called “the Global South.”
All these crops share legacies of slavery and exploitation that were based on colonialization and the rise of capitalism. For some, these human rights abuses are not in the past. But in other cases, creative and resilient men and women are thriving despite serious global challenges such as climate change and unjust systems.
A primary goal of “A World in Your Cup” is to educate consumers in the United States, Canada, and Europe (“the Global North”). Here you will meet some of the people whose hands make it possible for you to enjoy your morning coffee, or your evening Margarita. I seek to shed light on stories about the production of these ‘beverage crops’ in the Global South, as well as those in the Global North, to encourage a deeper appreciation for and understanding of the drinks so many of us never want to live without.
As I seek to tell stories from my coffee travels around the world with you, I hope to showcase what I’m learning from my coffee family, my experiences, and my reading. Much of this reading is based in my background in literature and the arts, as well as in political science. More recently, my reading is influenced through my doctoral studies in International Development and through my experiences of living this past year in Halifax, Nova Scotia – the place I now call ‘home’ and from where this website is launched.
I have been blessed to encounter dozens of people devoted to a magic bean – a fruit, actually – that goes through more transformations than Alice did when she fell down that rabbit hold in Lewis Carroll’s iconic Victorian novel.
Will you join my journey down the wonderland of your drink?
It’s a land filled with more paradox, poetry, and politics than Wonderland itself.
