Joy in the Mundane: Winter 2022
Coffee
Description
Coffee; America’s most used drug. I personally can’t go a day without drinking coffee now and I’m sure many others would agree with me. But to know where the coffee that I am drinking comes from, whose hands have picked it, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. This timeline focuses on the fair trade and child labour historical portion of the history of coffee. We travel with the coffee bean starting in Ethiopia/Arabian Peninsula and trekking all the way to the America’s. How did the faire trade system begin and develop? Why did it begin in the first place? Where politicians happy about it? Were business moguls pleased with the change? All very interesting questions to have about a bean. A bean that we rely on, a bean that made the Southern Hemisphere have a seat at the world trading table. There are two portions of this history, the 20th century when faire trade first came into play/how it was changed and discussed for years and then the 21st century, when places like Starbucks and Tim Hortons were known across the first world countries as a staple. Advertisements changed drastically over the years and capitalistic ideals were the forefront of consumption