01x07 - Coffee

[bunniefuu]

[alarm clock beeping]

[beeping stops]

[Redzepi] Listen closely.

- [coffee beans rattling]

- [coffee machine whirring]

It's the world waking up

to coffee.

I need coffee.

It's hard to imagine

a day without it.

And I'm not alone.

We drink coffee across

all corners of the planet,

nearly three

billion times a day.

A global addiction.

The siren song of coffee holds

a curious place in our lives.

Familiar, yet mysterious.

Its story still largely unknown.

But every cup has

a story to tell.

Let's go to a place

that's seen the best

and the worst of what

that cup of coffee can be.

We'll trace the path

of a singular bean,

from its cradle in

the hills of Rwanda

to a roaster in

the American South,

to see the symphony of human

endeavor, of toil and sweat,

of skilled hands that

pick, sort and roast.

All of the lives intertwined

in bringing us that

fleeting moment of joy.

The everyday miracle of coffee.

The story of coffee is

less a tale of tastes

than it is a history

of stimulation.

That includes the mythical

story of coffee's origins.

As legend has it,

a ninth-century Ethiopian

goat herder named Kaldi

was roaming the cloud forests

when he came upon his flock

snacking on a small red fruit.

They were restless, animated, nearly

levitating off the forest floor.

The bewildered goat

herder gathered the fruit

and brought it to

a nearby monastery.

The monks roasted and

boiled the mysterious buds

and found themselves possessed

by this new religious fervor.

The miracle of coffee was born.

What happens when that first

sip of coffee hits our lips?

Dopamine floods the brain.

Our hearts beat faster.

Our central nervous

system awakens.

Make no mistake about it,

coffee is a mind-, body-

and mood-altering substance,

a vehicle for caffeine, the most widely

consumed psychoactive drug in the world.

Our addiction has made coffee one of

the most traded commodities on earth,

cultivated across

nearly half the globe.

Our thirst for this ingredient,

reshaping the economies,

landscapes and lives

of entire nations.

Few places have seen such a

spectacular rebirth as Rwanda.

In the span of 30 years,

coffee in Rwanda has gone from being

a source of pain and oppression

to the engine behind one of the most

remarkable economic transformations

of the 21st century.

[farmer, in

Kinyarwanda] How is it?

[farmer 2] Not bad.

[chuckles]

It's the highest quality.

We're going to plant

a new coffee variety.

[farmer 2] Near Murunda?

Near the foothills.

[Justin] When coffee was

introduced in Rwanda,

my family was among the

first coffee farmers.

I inherited growing

coffee from my parents.

When I was young, I remember that

we had three small plantations

with around 1,000 coffee trees.

At that time, I was sure the only

way to earn money was growing coffee.

So, when I had Willy,

I decided that I should

teach him to grow coffee,

so he knows how to look after

coffee, the work it takes,

learns the benefits

and learns to love it.

So when I grow old and

can't do it anymore myself,

he can take over the tradition.

[Willy, in English] I never

dreamt of doing this business.

But my father, he's that person

who can make you love something

and learn more

through the process.

Rwandan soil is very

good for coffee.

Plus the altitude, because coffee

from the higher mountains is better.

[Redzepi] These branches,

a flush with cherries,

each cradling the future of your

next cappuccino in its flesh,

because coffee is a fruit,

and the beans we

brew are its seeds.

Each cherry ripens

at its own pace,

even on the same branch.

The most dedicated

specialty coffee growers

will revisit the same tree

repeatedly over weeks,

favoring quality over quantity.

[Willy] In Rwanda, all the

coffee picking is done by hand.

They pick only

ripe, red cherries.

If one picker mixes red, yellow,

and another picker picks

only ripe, red cherries,

the quality in the

cup will be different.

So you see, that's the difference

with Rwandan specialty coffee,

the human effort.

[Redzepi] From the moment the cherry

is picked, the clock starts ticking.

And time shows no mercy

towards the delicate fruit

that can spoil within hours.

The journey of coffee is as

varied as it is challenging.

Coffee plants thrive in the

heart of the coffee belt,

a collection of countries

hugging the equator.

For these places, coffee

is more than an ingredient.

It's a global commodity bought and

sold like steel, cotton or crude oil.

Its journey from seed to cup is

dictated by efficiency, consistency,

and the ever-shifting

tides of the marketplace,

always thirsty for more coffee.

This relentless demand

places a huge burden

on the people behind

our daily ritual.

[worker, in Kinyarwanda]

Put it on the scale.

[Redzepi, in English] Which

makes the work they do

to keep every link in the coffee

chain intact all the more miraculous.

[workers chattering]

[Redzepi] The difference between

a decent brew and the finest cup

comes down to human touch.

A mind-blowing 30 to

40 different people,

each a master of one

specific leg of the journey.

And every palm it passes through

is a crossroads between

success and failure.

The process here is incredible.

Once the cherries are brought

to the washing station,

they're depulped to separate

their fruit from the bean inside.

Then they're fermented to remove the

sticky mucilage and develop flavor.

Next, the coffee is graded.

Directed to water channels

where lighter beans float,

while the heavier, higher quality

ones sink and move through.

Finally, the beans are laid

out on long, raised beds

to dry under the blazing sun.

As you can see, it's not

about expensive equipment.

It's the eyes, the hands

and the collective knowledge of the

people that make the difference.

From this fine-tuned process,

emerges what many consider to be

some of the best coffee anywhere.

[sniffs]

[Willy] Lemon, oranges,

cashew nuts, and chocolates.

Those are the common fruits

that many people find

in their coffee

from this region.

"The farmers, when they deliver coffee,

they want to know, "How is our coffee?

How did it go? What did I miss?

"What do I have to improve next

time while harvesting or sorting?"

Every region, we have to give

them feedback about their coffee.

I want the community in Mahembe, the

coffee farmers, to live a good life

equal to the efforts

they put into farming.

[coffee expert] We're all connected

through the products we consume.

Coffee's a great example.

I liken it to a

very colorful quilt

that stitches people together in a

way that they wouldn't otherwise.

[Redzepi] Originally

from Rwanda,

Arthur Karuletwa has made

it his life's mission

to fight for the people

who produce our coffee.

Nowadays, the gap between farm and

table is a void that keeps expanding.

Most coffee is

destined for obscurity,

severed from its roots, its history

and the hands that nurtured it.

A story of disconnect in our

relentless quest for convenience.

But that convenience

comes at a cost,

especially to the farmers

tasked with keeping the world

caffeinated at bargain prices,

always asked to

do more for less,

even in the face of an

ever-shifting climate

and the push and pull

of the global market.

And now farmers are starting to walk

away from an industry that's failed them

at a time when we drink

more coffee than ever.

But there is a road

map for improvement.

Rwanda is carving out a path.

The cooperative model favored

here can be a lifeline

promising a better livelihood

for the people who deserve it.

Much of that is

thanks to Arthur.

A man who, in the early 2000s,

was already laying the bricks

for specialty coffee in Rwanda.

Arthur is one of those

rare kinds of people

who catalyzes real change.

[Arthur] It's a story about our belief

in the power of human connection,

about what happens when we

replace labels with faces

and how global transformation starts

when people have a one-to-one connection.

[Redzepi] His mission is to trace

the beans' journey from tree to cup,

ensuring that all the

contributors in the coffee chain

are recognized and

rewarded for their efforts.

[in Kinyarwanda] Hey,

Justin! How are you doing?

- I am fine.

- Long time!

- Thanks for paying us a visit.

- Yeah!

Tell me about your

relationship with your farmers.

[Justin] Our goal is to help

educate them as much as possible,

so they can make

the best coffee.

That's valuable information for

me to have to take to the markets.

As a Rwandan, I take pride

in selling coffee abroad

and delivering it to those who

truly appreciate and enjoy it.

The immense pride it

brings me is beyond words.

[continues speaking

indistinctly]

[Arthur, in English] When I work

with producers like Mahembe,

I'm diving into a lot

of personal aspects.

How much are you paying farmers?

How are you treating them?

You can't have a quality

coffee on the table

and not expect to see a quality

of life for the people who grow it

and the communities that

are sustained by it.

Justin and Willy, they've nurtured

the community in a way that

quality of life is

important to 'em.

It is a beautiful thing

that deserves amplification.

[Redzepi] Coffee isn't

native to Rwanda.

In fact, it's indigenous to only a

small part of Ethiopia and South Sudan.

So, how did it come to dominate so

many countries around the globe?

Its spread outside Africa

and the Middle East

began in the 1600s

with an unlikely hero,

a trader named Baba Budan,

who strapped seven fresh

coffee beans to his stomach

before smuggling them from

Yemen back to his native India.

Soon, coffee was being

cultivated across Asia.

As coffee production spread eastward,

coffee consumption moved ever westward

from Mocha to Mecca,

Cairo to Constantinople

and eventually to Venice,

where coffee bubbled up in 1615

marking its arrival in Europe.

It replaced beer and wine as the

breakfast beverage of choice.

Not surprisingly,

productivity skyrocketed.

For the power brokers,

coffee's expl*sive popularity

begged a larger question:

why purchase it, when they

could control the supply?

The Dutch led the way,

installing plantations in their colonies

in the East Indies, notably Java.

Other countries

quickly followed suit.

Around the world from Brazil

to Africa to the Caribbean,

European empires forced their

colonies to grow their commodity crop.

[Arthur] Rwanda was first colonized

by Germany and then Belgium.

I don't think anybody knew

Rwanda produced coffee

because coffee went

straight to Belgium.

Not a single acknowledgement

that it came from Rwanda.

It was grown, harvested, processed

and picked with this sl*ve mentality.

The colonial introduction of

coffee stipulated three laws.

One: grow it.

It didn't matter if you

had a ten-by-ten backyard

that you grew your

food crops in.

You had to find space

for the cash crop.

Two: never cut the tree down

without getting permission.

And the third was: coffee

was ill*gal to consume.

We were mandated

not to drink it.

Now, imagine what that does

to a nation and a people.

The burden and pain

of producing a product

that you can't rely on

economically or even socially.

[Redzepi] For most of its

coffee-growing history,

Rwanda was forced to focus

on quantity, not quality.

Rwandan farmers had no choice

but to sell their coffee at

the lowest commodity price.

But in the late 1980s, the

world's coffee prices crashed.

Producing countries slipped

into devastating poverty.

Few were hit as hard as Rwanda,

already reeling from a growing

tide of ethnic division.

The ensuing years saw political

unrest and economic desperation,

which culminated in

the 1994 genocide.

[news reporter] Extremists from

the dominant Hutu ethnic group

began a 100-day k*lling spree to

rid the country of minority Tutsis.

[news reporter 2] Upwards of 800,000

people were k*lled in just 100 days.

[news reporter 3] It was mass

m*rder on a scale not seen

since the Second World w*r.

[Willy] During the genocide,

they burned everything.

Even the coffee farm was burned.

The house was demolished.

[Justin, in Kinyarwanda]

There were 27 households

on that hill where we

lived, more than 200 people.

All those households

were of the same family.

Only four of us survived.

[Willy, in English] My grandpa and

grandma passed away during the genocide.

My father went to Kigali, did

some little business in transport.

But deep, deep down, he had

that feeling of coming back

and doing what his

father used to do.

[Arthur] After 1994, I

spent the next couple years

trying to figure out why

did the genocide happen?

How could it happen that fast?

I came to the conclusion that at

the heart of it all was poverty.

That is the brink at which

these commodities, like coffee,

took my country into in 1994.

Coffee, amongst other things,

of course, had a role to play.

Its introduction and its processes

sustained this poverty cycle.

But in the aftermath

of the genocide,

we also realized that coffee

was a tool to reconcile.

[farmer, in Kinyarwanda]

Forty-four. Forty-four, Majya!

[farmer 2] Yes!

[farmer] Watch out, the

sack may fall on top of you.

[grunts]

- This time it is thirty-two.

- All right!

[Arthur, in English] Coffee is the

product that's going to fill the void.

- [farmer 2, in Kinyarwanda] Number?

- Forty-five.

[Arthur, in English] There only used

to be three washing stations in Rwanda.

So we went from three to

330 around the country.

- [farmer 2] Number?

- [farmer, in Kinyarwanda] Thirty!

[Arthur, in English] So that

we could have 330 places

where people could

come together,

bonded around a common goal.

[farmer 3] Fifteen.

[farmer 2] All right!

[Arthur] We knew that was

the beginning of healing.

We picked coffee in silence,

we brought it to the

mills in silence,

but we processed

it in conversation.

And by the time we shipped it, we made

sure we were embracing each other.

Tupac has an incredible

song where he says that

a rose is growing

out of concrete.

That is Rwandan coffee.

With coffee, we see our humanity

through an illuminating lens.

Both the darkness and the light.

By working together,

shoulder to shoulder

to improve the quality of

their coffee and processes,

thousands of Rwandan farmers

found a path out of poverty.

Every country that grows coffee

experiences its perils and declines,

but what happened in

Rwanda really gave hope

that coffee could be a

catalyst for a better future.

[Redzepi] The farmers

and producers of Rwanda

have undertaken the first huge

piece of coffee's transformation.

But the journey of these

beans is far from over.

It will go through a vast network

of brokers and auctioneers,

burlap sacks hustled onto bikes,

loaded into the backs

of trucks and trains,

and shipped in cargo holds by

the millions across the planet.

Some of these Rwandan coffee

beans are on their way to Sydney.

Others to Singapore.

As for our beans, they're destined for

a special corner of the American South.

[Areli] Roasters have a

lot of responsibility,

but every roasting

book that you read,

it's like, "You've gotta

start with great coffee."

You can't make bad coffee good.

You gotta start

with great quality.

Little Waves is

our coffee roastery

where we really focus on

creating relationships

with coffee producers

all around the world.

We feel that coffee, when

it shows up to our doorstep,

it has its own essence, it

has its own flavor profile,

and it's up to us to get

the best flavor out of it.

[Redzepi] An expert roaster can elevate

good beans into the extraordinary.

But given the high heat

and the heavy machinery,

seconds can separate capturing

the sweet spot of our beans

or ruining the hard work of the

dozens who brought them to this point.

Within a mere 12 minutes

it takes to roast a bean

from pale to golden brown

lies entire weather systems,

people's hopes and dreams

and countless hours of work.

[Areli] You could

overdevelop it,

where it's kind of

flat and papery.

You could under-develop it,

where you're lacking

body, lacking sweetness,

literally just tasting

like grass and hay.

Every step of the way,

everything has to be perfect.

[Redzepi] Personally, I

prefer my roast light,

teeming with fruity notes and acidity,

hints of raspberry and lavender.

For me, a good coffee is

like a great glass of wine.

It might seem

far-fetched to some,

but when you consider

all the people,

all the effort that goes into

making a good cup of coffee,

it's hard not to

see the connection.

[chattering, chuckling]

- [Areli] Hey, Arthur!

- Hey.

- How's it going?

- Hey. Welcome to Durham.

Thanks for having me.

[Redzepi] To get to this point, this

little fruit has crossed continents,

traversed oceans and passed through

the hands of dozens of people.

[Arthur] It's got that nice

beautiful greenish-blueish hue.

It's a way of saying,

"I'm here, I'm clean,

I've been well-processed."

The stories it could

tell are fascinating.

[Redzepi] Every hand that

touches coffee adds to its value.

But like so much of

the food we consume,

the value is rarely passed back.

Coffee farmers keep just 1% of

the price you pay for your cup.

A disparity that people in

the specialty coffee world

are hoping to improve.

[Areli] The conversation that

is happening in our industry is,

how do we share the risks

so that producers have a lot more

say and a lot more protection?

[Arthur] Coffee reveals its

true beauty if it's equitable.

We have to be rewarding

everyone behind that coffee.

That starts with a farmer being

recognized and acknowledged and seen.

[Redzepi] Twenty years ago,

specialty coffee was a niche.

Now it's a $25 billion business

and it's expected

to double by 2030,

proof that people are

willing to pay for quality.

Coffee has never been more

delicious than it is today.

[no audible dialogue]

And so much of that

hinges on the brew.

If you tried coffee

500 years ago

in the early coffee houses of

Europe and the Middle East,

you probably wouldn't

recognize it.

Boiled, bitter, over-extracted,

the quality of the

coffee wasn't the point.

The ritual, the

revelry, the buzz,

that's what kept

the coffee brewing.

It wasn't until the 20th century

that coffee technology

began to reshape the drink

and the places where

people drink it.

In 1908, a German housewife

invented the pour over,

a method still used today for a

lighter, more delicate flavor.

My favorite, actually.

Only a few years earlier,

two Italian engineers had come

up with a high-pressure system

to filter hot water

through finely-ground beans

for a faster, stronger cup

giving us the gift of espresso.

The drinks and

techniques kept coming:

latte, cappuccino,

AeroPress, frappéd, instant,

iced, frothed, shaken,

pressed, infused, sweetened.

A coffee order for every season,

every mood and every person.

An individual expression of us.

[Arthur] If you drink coffee every

day, you are already making an impact.

We all do it,

unbeknownst to ourselves.

It's really hard to consume

a product enough times

without building an

inquisition about it.

And usually the first inquisition

is, "Where is this from?"

I perceive how you brew coffee,

paying homage to where it's

grown and the people who grow it.

Its flora, its fauna

the smell of the red

dirt after a slight rain.

The flowerings of

surrounding crops.

Children laughing,

women singing.

What we can learn from coffee is that

the things we consume matter so much.

Seismic change can happen

through the ease of

just drinking something.

[sniffs]

[coffee machine grinding]

So how do you take your coffee?

Slow-dripped in a quiet café?

Pushed through a

pod in your kitchen?

Or maybe crafted by

the hands of an expert?

That's the beauty of coffee.

There's no wrong way.

But what if every so often

we do more than drink coffee?

We try to understand and appreciate,

for a few fleeting moments,

the people, the skill, the

collaboration that go into its creation.

This one simple act

can make the daily grind

a bit more meaningful.

Maybe even

a bit more miraculous.

[Redzepi sniffs] Mmm.