Q. What is the process by which coffee goes from a plantation to Starbucks, and what does this reveal about inequality in global society? A Very Brief History of Starbucks In 1971, Starbucks opened its first ever store at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, USA. Thirteen years later in 1984, it tested the concept of a coffeehouse in downtown Seattle, an idea by Howard Schultz, the director of retail operations and marketing, and served the first ever Starbucks Caffè Latte. Now, the company owns 25,734 stores as of January 1, 2017 (www.news.starbucks.com), and has more than 87,000 customizable drinks for the 50 million customers it serves every week all over the world (Bussing-Burks, p.1). This certainly does not leave much to be said about the worldwide popularity coffee has gained over the years. According to the latest data, in the year 2015/16 (October 2015 – September 2016), 151.3 million 60 kilogram bags of coffee were consumed worldwide (www.ico.org), which translates to 151,300,000 kilograms of coffee consumed. After all, you just need to walk over to the nearest coffee shop, ask for a cup of coffee and you are ready to begin your day. But what exactly did it take for that delicious cup of coffee in your hands to come into existence? In this case, the answer is slightly more complicated than a simple coffee machine. How Coffee is made: Plantation The process by which coffee goes from a plantation to any store is almost the same, regardless of the type of coffee, but since Starbucks only buys the more expensive yet more flavourful Arabica beans for making its coffee (Bussing-Burks, p.6-7), let us follow the journey of an average Arabica bean being grown in Indonesia, the third-largest exporter and largest producer of washed Arabica coffee (www.coffeeandhealth.org). The first step is the planting process. In the beginning, coffee seeds are usually planted in nurseries, where they are watered frequently and shaded from bright sunlight. Planting is often done during the wet season, as during this season the soil remains moist while the roots grow and settle firmly (www.ncausa.org). Under proper circumstances, a coffee plant will grow to a height of fifteen to twenty feet. Its shape is slender, with usually thin but long, drooping branches opening out at the upper part (C. P Hull, p.1) The method of first growing coffee seeds in nurseries, then transplanting them to plantations, often laid out in slightly higher altitudes such as in the foot hills of mountains in the case of Arabica beans, and providing them shade when necessary, was a method first practised by the fifteenth century Abyssinian Arabs, who were the first to intensively cultivate coffee plants (H. Ukers, p.197). How Coffee is made: Harvesting After an approximate three to four years, the fruit of the coffee plant, called the coffee cherry, becomes ripe and ready for harvesting. Mostly, the crop is picked by hand in a difficult and labour-intensive process, which can be either the strip picking method in which all the cherries are stripped off the branch at one time, or the selective picking method, where only the good, ripe cherries are picked out individually by hand (www.ncausa.org), though there are other methods as well. For example in Yemen, the berries are allowed to dry until the outer covering shrivels up, and then the trees are shaken, allowing the ripe fruits to fall down upon cloths spread over the ground to receive them (H. Ukers, p.246). How Coffee is made: Preparing the ‘green coffee’ beans The two methods for removing the green coffee seeds from the fruit are the wet method Q. What is the process by which coffee goes from a plantation to Starbucks, and what does this reveal about inequality in global society? and the dry method. In the dry method, the coffee cherries are spread under the sun and thoroughly dried out until the moisture content is below 12.5%, a process that can take up to 4 weeks. After this, they are sent to the mill for hulling, where the outer layer of the dried cherry is removed while the green coffee beans inside it are sorted and graded ready for selling (www.coffeeandhealth.org). In the wet method, the cherries are first passed through a pulping machine where the skin and pulp is separated from the bean. After this, the beans are passed through water channels, where the lighter ones float to the top while the ripe beans which are heavier sink to the bottom. After this, they are separated by size and sent to water-filled fermentation tanks to fully clean them, and then washed away once more before being dried to bring down the moisture content. After being hulled, sorted and graded, they are ready for selling (www.ncausa.org). How Coffee is made: Roasting & Grinding Roasting is what gives coffee beans their typical brown colour, as well as the distinct aroma. Green coffee beans are heated to between 180°C and 240°C for 1.5 to 20 minutes. A stronger roasting gives the coffee beans a darker colour and a more intense aroma and flavour. If needed, the roasted coffee can be ground in a coffee grinder, with the grind size depending upon the intended use, as that will influence the flavour in the cup (www.coffeeandhealth.org). And thus, the coffee is ready to be sent away for use in Starbucks. Inequality in Global Society The processes for growing coffee seem simple enough, as ordinary as almost any other method for growing and preparing a crop for sale, so how could it be possibly be related to an issue like inequality in our global society? Surprisingly, this small cup of coffee can reveal quite a lot about the inequality that contaminates our modern global society. The few teaspoons’ worth of coffee needed to make one cup literally took litres of water, hours of labour, and countless other resources to get there; first during plantation, when the plants are frequently watered and given fertilizers and pesticides, then during harvesting when extensive labour is needed for picking out the cherries, where the people barely earn money that is worth the hard work they put in. After that, a massive amount of water is needed if the coffee beans are prepared by the wet method, not to mention the resources used for running the machinery during the wet method. Even during the dry method, machinery is often used to make the process faster, as well as water for washing the beans afterwards. On the other hand though, we have people who constantly struggle to obtain even a glass of water, or a piece of bread, each and every day. For these people, who even have to survive in places like deserts, our lives are like something from a fairy tale. Ironically, these people also include those labourers who are busy picking cherries in order to earn enough to stay alive. If we truly want to call ourselves a modern society, then we should learn from this cup of coffee and try to use these resources in making this world a better place to live in for those people as well, instead of doing the complete opposite. (Total Words: 1,146) Q. What is the process by which coffee goes from a plantation to Starbucks, and what does this reveal about inequality in global society? All Sources Used (in order): (1) Starbucks https://news.starbucks.com/uploads/documents/AboutUs-Timeline-1.26.17.pdf [.pdf] (2) Corporations that changed the world: Starbucks, Marie Bussing-Burks (p.1) (3) International Coffee Organization http://www.ico.org/monthly_coffee_trade_stats.asp (4) Corporations that changed the world: Starbucks, Marie Bussing-Burks (p.6-7) (5) Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee http://www.coffeeandhealth.org/all-about-coffee/coffee-production-today/ (6) National Coffee Association USA http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/10-Steps-from-Seed-to-Cup (7) Coffee Planting in Southern India and Ceylon, Edmund C. P Hull (p.1) (8) All About Coffee, William H. Ukers (p.197) (9) National Coffee Association USA http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/10-Steps-from-Seed-to-Cup (10) All About Coffee, William H. Ukers (p.246) (11) Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee http://www.coffeeandhealth.org/all-about-coffee/initial-processing/ (12) National Coffee Association USA http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/10-Steps-from-Seed-to-Cup (13) Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee http://www.coffeeandhealth.org/all-about-coffee/roasting-grinding/ Reflection Working on this project taught me quite a lot about how to research and write a research paper. I learnt that research papers, as the name suggests, require extensive and thorough research beforehand. They need to have all the important details and information about the topic. Another very important part of research papers is that all the sources used for the information should be referenced properly. I found that the best way to write a research paper is to first prepare a list of all the possible sources you can use, and then use them to look for information and write it in your paper in a neat and organized manner. This also makes referencing easier as you already have a list of the sources you used. I also learnt that for research, books are the best sources because they are the most reliable. If you are using the internet, then you should be really careful that the information is true and reliable. Research should be completed as early as possible, so that you have enough time to write a good paper, something that I need to concentrate on to make my next research assignment better. I will also focus on being more careful when researching on the internet, as I wasted quite some time reading articles that were giving wrong information.
