To Make a Cup of Coffee, It Takes More Than a Village
A journey of thanks for a simple daily pleasure reveals the miracle of a globalized economy
ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER
36 COMMENTS
By
A.J. Jacobs
Nov. 8, 2018 11:29 a.m. ET
I recently had the opportunity to gaze at one of the most mind-boggling accomplishments in history. This marvel is the result of thousands of human beings collaborating across dozens of countries. It required the combined labor of artists, biologists, politicians, mechanics, miners and goatherds. It took airplanes, boats, trucks, motorcycles, vans, pallets and shoulders. It depended on a vast range of materials, from steel and wood to explosives and bat guano. It relied on ancient wisdom and space-age technology, on freezing temperatures and scorching heat.
It is my morning cup of coffee.
For most of my life, I rarely thought about my coffee unless it spilled on my jacket or scalded the roof of my mouth. But earlier this year, on a dare from my son—and in an attempt to battle my default mental state of generalized annoyance—I undertook a deceptively simple quest. I pledged to thank every person who had even the smallest role in making my cup of coffee a reality: the barista, the farmer and everyone in between.
It turned out to be not so simple a project. For instance, the coffee beans are driven to my local cafe in a van, so I had to thank the driver. But he couldn’t do his job without the road—so I had to thank the pavers. And the road would be dangerous without the yellow lines—so I had to thank the folks who made the paint.
I ended up thanking a thousand people. But if I had the time, it could have been 10,000. Or a million. Our modern lives depend on radical interconnection.
I ended up thanking a thousand people. But if I had the time, it could have been 10,000. Or a million.
Admittedly, I encountered some skepticism. “Is this some sort of pyramid scheme?” I was asked more than once, when I called to thank someone out of the blue. But the vast majority of thankees were surprisingly receptive. I remember calling the woman who does pest control for the warehouse where the coffee is stored. “I know this sounds strange,” I said, “but I just want to thank you for helping to keep the bugs out of my coffee.” “That is strange,” she said, “but you made my day.”
Since I don’t drink my coffee out of a spigot, I thanked the cup-makers as well. One of my favorite conversations was when I called to thank the man who designed the lid for my coffee cup. Never could I have imagined the amount of thought that went into this 2.5-inch piece of plastic. The designer, Doug Fleming, is quite an innovator—the Elon Musk of cup tops, but perhaps more emotionally stable.
“Coffee is not farm to cup,” he points out. “It’s farm to face.” Among his many improvements, Mr. Fleming designed a crescent-shaped sipping hole on the inner lip of the lid. The hole isn’t flat on the lid, as with most covers. This, he says, makes the coffee flow more smoothly. You don’t need to pucker your lips, which means you get a better “retronasal experience.” I’m not 100% sure what this means, honestly, but it reminded me that if something is done well, the process behind it is largely invisible.
To make his lids, Mr. Fleming had to import special machine tools (previously used in making raspberry containers) from Canada. We may be living in a moment of tribalism and nationalism, but it’s important to remember: It doesn’t just take a village to make a cup of coffee. It takes the world.
Consider my trip to Nieva, the mountain town in Colombia where my coffee beans are grown. I was driven along dirt roads to the small farm owned by the Guarnizo family, nine brothers and a sister. The Guarnizos took me on a tour—the coffee plants with the red cherries that hold the beans, the chickens the size of adult pit bulls—and I thanked them for helping wake me up every day with their coffee.
The Guarnizos responded that they couldn’t do their job without a hundred other people. The machine they use to depulp the fruit is made in Brazil. They drive around the farm on a pickup truck with parts from all over the world.
My coffee is only 1.2% coffee-bean powder. The rest is water, so I figured I needed to thank the people who provide water to New York City. I went upstate to meet some of the thousands of people who work on the reservoir that makes it possible for me to turn a knob and have drinkable water. I thanked chemists, engineers and the staff people who scoop up deer manure before a rainstorm so it doesn’t foul the reservoir.
It was a reminder that millions of people around the world have to spend hours walking to the nearest well to get clean water. This raised an important point: Gratitude should inspire us to action, not make us complacent. So I donated to Dispensers for Safe Water, an organization that helps to provide clean water in Africa.
One of my final trips was to visit to a steel mill in Indiana to thank the steelworkers. They forge the metal used in coffee machines, trucks and bridges. I met with several steelworkers who had been there for decades. They were thankful to still have a job, despite its hardships. They spoke at length about their bouts of carbon monoxide poisoning, which laid them out for days. “It was like the worst hangover,” one told me, much to the seeming alarm of the steel PR woman nearby. But he added, “I’m not sorry I stayed here. It paid for two kids to go through college, and a house, and a car, and everything else.”
In the short term, these folks may or may not be helped by the new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. But I believe that in the long term, as the majority of economists will tell you, trade barriers are an impediment to progress. Globalization has downsides, and these Indiana steelworkers might be a casualty. But free trade has been a great boon to humanity. The global poverty rate has fallen, lifespans have jumped. Consumers have been given access to a dizzying variety of goods. As the Stanford economics professor Russ Roberts says, “We already tried ‘Buy local.’ It’s called the Middle Ages.”
—This essay is adapted from Mr. Jacobs’s new book “Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey,” which will be published by TED Books on Nov. 13.
QUESTIONS:
1. How did the author explore the supply chain for a cup of coffee? How many people (estimated) are involved?
2. How many “tiers” in the supply chain of a cup of coffee did the author explore? How many of these tiers do you believe actually communicate with one another?
3. What is the bullwhip effect? Why is this an important concept for supply chains like those explored in the article?
4. With how many “tiers” of your suppliers does your company directly communicate? What would be the benefits of communicating with other supply chain partners?
5. What is Supply Chain Management? Why is this an increasingly important discipline? In what ways is your company practicing Supply Chain Management?
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