S4 E28 | The Bean, the Brew, and the Babble: From Small Farms and Small Cafes to Big Business

The Dissidents

This week's episode is the first in an occasional series about coffee and chocolate. Our guest, James Hayes-Bohanan, has been doing research on political, social, cultural, and environmental geography of coffee for 20 years. In this episode James gives us an overview of historical and contemporary coffee culture and the sociopolitical impact of coffee shops. He describes the growing process, introduces us to growers, and helps us understand the complexities of social justice in the context of fair trade, small farms, and large coffee traders. We talk about coffee tasters' impact on price and quality, coffee rituals, and Frank Sinatra's coffee song.

Podcast Notes:

Stafford, T. (2003). Psychology in the coffee shop. The Psychologist, 16(7), 358–359.

Here is a link to blog posts (compiled by James' and his students) about local coffee shops: https://geocafes.blogspot.com/

Read the post about Vietnam Coffee, with embedded links to more resources: https://www.environmentalgeography.net/2024/07/siegried-in-vietnam.html

Listen to Frank Sinatra sing about coffee here: https://youtu.be/hc_Y4oqdP0I?si=T2XJo9VJ222t1rJD