4) Just Friends? America’s love affair with c...

What happens when coffee disappears? This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks. When coffee is not around, people still need something warm, comforting, and familiar. And throu ...  Show more

Most coffee is grown on vast plantations using machines, pesticides and fertilisers. But in Ethiopia, coffee grows wild in humid forests surrounded by birds. And that wild coffee matters more than most of us realise. It is the genetic ‘library’ we can turn to find new varieties t ...  Show more

America is coffee-obsessed. From Central Perk’s red couch being the centre of major plot twists in Friends to the fact the average American drank more than two cups a day. And the conventional explanation is pretty straightforward: an English colonist introduces coffee to Jamesto ...  Show more

What is coffee? Who was the first person to think of creating a drink from coffee beans? How did coffee spread from the forests of East Africa to almost every town on earth? And what is the future of the coffee industry? Let’s discuss these questions and more on today’s episod ...  Show more

If you enjoy hearing about the world of coffee, I recommend you check out my conversation with the founder of Pret, Julian Metcalfe, which you can find here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uViyOJsc6O4 It’s the world’s most popular drink, with people drinking over 2 billion cups ...  Show more

What flavours do you want from your coffee? Every coffee bean begins its life green. And if you brewed it up without first roasting it, you’d get a yellow-green cup of grass-flavoured water. But, as soon you apply heat to a bean, the flavour can morph to from something quite vege ...  Show more