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A History of Coffee

James Harper 22 episodes Latest Apr 20, 2026

A History of Coffee is a documentary podcast that explores how a tiny psychoactive seed transformed the world and continues to shape our lives. Across six episodes, host James Harper and historian Jonathan Morris trace the global journey of coffee, from its origins to the modern industry. The series examines the immense fortunes and hardships created by coffee, as well as its environmental impact. It aims to foster a more equitable and sustainable coffee industry by uncovering the stories behind every cup.

Episodes

Guatemala's Inconvenient Truth, Part 2: Who does specialty serve? Apr 20, 2026 1724 Specialty coffee changes the story for the indigenous people of Guatemala. Coffee as a tool of oppression finally offers hope....and then something a bit more complicated. This episode explores the tension between the values of the Mayan communities who grow coffee, and the values that drive the specialty coffee movement. Many of the signals we typically look for in our coffees - super-special

Guatemala's Inconvenient Truth, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway? Apr 20, 2026 2630 When you buy a bag of coffee labelled fifth-generation family farm, it feels like a good choice. But in Guatemala, that label might actually be a signal for a more uncomfortable truth. This episode explores how land has been understood, used, and eventually fought over in Guatemala for centuries between indigenous people, Europeans and those in-between. It’s a story of what happened immedia

Surrogates: Anything but the coffee Mar 2, 2026 2785 What happens when coffee disappears? This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks. When coffee is not around, people still need something warm, comforting, and familiar. And throughout history, people have reached for coffee surrogates: roasted plants and grains engineered to look like coffee…

Mother Coffee: The history and heritage of Ethiopia's wild coffee forests Feb 9, 2026 2920 Most coffee is grown on vast plantations using machines, pesticides and fertilisers. But in Ethiopia, coffee grows wild in humid forests surrounded by birds. And that wild coffee matters more than most of us realise. It is the genetic ‘library’ we can turn to find new varieties to help us keep coffee thriving in the face of climate change. But the communities who live alongside them and h

We Built This City…On Coffee: Hamburg and the making of Europe's coffee trade Jan 5, 2026 3012 On a long walk through Hamburg, somewhere between the fish markets and giant cranes, you might stumble a giant bronze coffee bean looks like its crash landed from space. But this giant coffee bean represents a staggering fact: one in every three cups of coffee drunk in Europe has passed through Hamburg. In the first half of this episode, we explore the many profound ways coffee shaped one of

Introducing: Series Three of A History of Coffee Dec 1, 2025 179 We’re back with more stories about the tiny psychoactive seed that changed the world and continues to shape our lives today. Is it possible to follow the story not just to Ethiopia, not just to a single town, but all the way back to one tree? We’ll uncover the uncomfortable history of Guatemala — a story about who inherited the rich volcanic soil, and who was forced to work it. We explore what

4) Just Friends? America’s love affair with coffee Apr 17, 2023 2663 America is coffee-obsessed. From Central Perk’s red couch being the centre of major plot twists in Friends to the fact the average American drank more than two cups a day. And the conventional explanation is pretty straightforward: an English colonist introduces coffee to Jamestown in 1607. 150 years later Americans rebel against the British by throwing tea chests into Boston harbour and drinking

3) Espresso Lungo: The slow road to Italy’s democratic espresso culture Apr 17, 2023 2694 One morning back in the ‘80s, Howard Schultz walks out of his Milan hotel, stumbles into an espresso bar, and fundamentally changes coffee history. He discovered (and then popularises) the iconic, timeless Italian coffee experience: Rich thick coffee, an affordable price and great theatre. But this Italian ritual is surprisingly young, so young that Howard Schultz was in school while some of i

2) A Lasting Stain: Haiti, Colonialism and Coffee Apr 17, 2023 2851 Haiti was once the biggest, most profitable coffee growing region in the world. But today Haiti is one of the world’s poorest nations where you can’t get a bag of Haitian beans delivered to Berlin in a week for love nor money. In this second episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we show you how colonialism and racism dragged Haiti into poverty, and the role of coffee at the centre of i

1) It’s Just Coffee? How coffee houses changed the world Apr 17, 2023 2719 A coffee shop is a lot more than just a place to drink coffee. The seats and sofas encourage you to invite a friend, and chat. And chatting is powerful: ideas that emerge from these caffeine-fuelled conversations give birth to modern finance and even the founding of great artistic and scientific institutions. Meanwhile, other ideas threaten those in power, and have led to many attempts to ban co

Introducing: Series Two of A History of Coffee Apr 3, 2023 300 We're back with more stories about the tiny psychoactive seed that changed the world and continues to shape our lives today. In Series Two, we reveal how the invention of the coffee shop revolutionised societies, why colonialism, racism and coffee have kept once prosperous Haiti poor today, how Italy's revered espresso culture was created, and we debunk many myths around America's supposed love a

BONUS: Coffee’s Ticking Time Bomb May 31, 2022 2755 We have an exciting announcement....AND, a story about Sri Lanka and coffee history we think you're really going to like. Sri Lankan coffee has delicious notes of chocolate and caramel. But it’s basically impossible to find, and we’re going to bet you’ve never drank it. But that's really odd, because Sri Lanka has the perfect climate to grow coffee, and was once one of the biggest coffee growi

BONUS: A History of Tea Feb 15, 2022 1674 Coffee has a fascinating history stretching back hundreds of years. But tea takes it to the next level, stretching back thousands. And it too was colonised by Europeans with huge repercussions that we are still feeling today. We hope you enjoy episode 11 from the excellent The Tea History podcast: Europeans Discover Tea, produced by Laszlo Montgomery. Listen to the rest of The Tea History Pod

BONUS: Decolonising Coffee History Jun 22, 2021 2883 Each sip of coffee we drink is steeped in dark colonial past. The reason we can enjoy it every morning is because it's relatively cheap, and many people suffered under European colonisers to create systems that produced this cheap coffee. But unfortunately, that's just the beginning. Colonialism has stripped enslaved and indigenous people of their language, pushed their descendants into work t

BONUS: Stimulating stories or fantastic flavours: what sells coffee? May 25, 2021 1866 We are hard at work on the bonus episode about decolonising coffee history. But...in the meantime, here's an episode from a sister podcast we think you'll enjoy. You can listen to more episodes from Adventures in Coffee here: https://bit.ly/300V4jS Subscribe to The Science of Coffee podcast Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by c

6) The Future of Coffee? May 13, 2021 2820 Do you grind your beans fresh before brewing your coffee? If so, you are helping overturn a race-to–the-bottom with deep roots in colonial extraction that today is leaving millions of coffee farmers impoverished. Or, at least, that’s what many specialty coffee companies would like you to believe. The truth is a lot less rosy. In this final episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James expl

5) Desperately Seeking Sustainability Apr 23, 2021 2240 When was the last time you bought a coffee that was Fairtrade certified? Certifications make it easy for consumers to put their ethics into practice. But, hidden beneath the glossy sticker is a maze of complications and paradoxical outcomes. In this fifth episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James explore where coffee certifications came from, how they tried to stop coffee’s devastating

4) A Dark Bitter Powder Mar 11, 2021 2172 How do you drink your instant coffee? If you’re like most of the world, you fill your mug with milk and sugar to sweeten the taste. By adding milk and sugar to your instant, you helped bring new growers - and consumers - into coffee, but arguably contributed to a crisis that left hundreds of thousands of people malnourished. In this fourth episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James exp

3) Coffee Catches Fire Mar 2, 2021 2403 A hundred years ago one Brazilian man owned so many coffee trees he could fill every inch of a European country with them. But why does Brazil grow so much? And who is drinking these lakes of caffeine? In this third episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James explore how industrialisation dramatically and permanently strips away Brazil’s forests, and why coffee becomes a part of the Ameri

2) Slavery, Suffering and Affordable Luxury Feb 17, 2021 2556 Why do we get upset when we’re charged €36 for an ordinary cappuccino? The answer flies us to the Caribbean where white Europeans make black Africans suffer. In this second episode of A History of Coffee, we uncover how colonialism squeezes the price of coffee, and how that changes European culture forever. A History of Coffee is a collaboration between James Harper of the Filter Stories - Co

1) A Five Gun Salute to the Origins of Coffee Feb 17, 2021 2364 Here’s a surprising fact: coffee was only invented around the time Michelangelo was chiselling his statue of David. Why did it take so long for humans to invent the cup of coffee? In this first episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James unpack how humans figured out that delicious flavours were contained in the roasted seeds of a coffee tree’s cherries. The answer has nothing to do wit

Introducing: A History of Coffee Feb 15, 2021 250 A History of Coffee is the story of how a tiny psychoactive seed changed the world and shapes our lives today. Across six episodes, documentary maker James Harper and professional historian Jonathan Morris narrate how humans race coffee across oceans to keep up with demand for this addictive drink. Coffee creates enormous fortunes for some, and misery for others. Sometimes the environment bene

A History of Coffee

Episodes

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