“Coffee is the common man’s gold, and like gold, it brings to every person the sense of luxury and nobility.” - Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Jaziri, 1587

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In its “original wave”, coffee was viewed and used as an almost magical elixir that inspired, cultivated, and fueled a global social revolution. Coffeehouses became one of the few places where there were no class barriers. For a cup of coffee, you were allowed entry into an incredible world of art, politics, and human connections. These coffee houses were beautiful, opulent and inspiring places that sparked new ways of thinking. In 1730, in the Amsterdam exchange, a pound of unroasted coffee was $13/lbs (it’s currently 1.21 cents/lbs) so the price for a cup could easily reach $16.

 

Unfortunately, this way of experiencing coffee has been lost for over 150 years. In 1715, the French colonialists brought coffee production into the western hemisphere where slave labor was introduced. Coffee began a gradual decline in quality as it scaled up and became a global commodity and the quality of life for farmers diminished. When reading Sheikh Abdul Qadir’s quote, we see just how far we have strayed from coffee origins. My vision is to elevate the world’s coffee experience to that of its glorious past: to do this we must reimagine the rituals, methods, and spaces coffee is consumed in the 21st century. This is how we will bring back coffee’s “original wave.”