Like many people, Steven Topik’s coffee habit was formed in college. But it’s become a lot more than a caffeine fix to the historian in the years since.

“I experienced coffee as a site of sociability, a drug, an academic subject and a commodity,” says Topik, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, who is writing a world history of the popular beverage.

He will discuss it in St. Louis Sept. 14 as a guest of the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Titled “Why Americans drink coffee: the story of an unlikely romance,” his address is this year’s James Neal Primm Lecture in History. Free and open to the public, the event begins at 7 p.m. at the Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Blvd).

Leading up to his visit, which is sponsored by UMSL’s Department of History and the Missouri History Museum, UMSL Daily caught up with Topik on all things coffee, history and St. Louis.

Your interest in coffee is obvious given the topic of your upcoming lecture, and the picture of you on the event flier suggests you enjoy drinking coffee as well as writing about it. Is that the case? And if so, how many cups a day do you drink on average?

I drink about two cups of coffee a day. Sometimes a little more.

How did you arrive at this intellectual exploration of coffee and its history?

My interaction with coffee started at home since my father, from Germany, and my mother, from Austria, drank coffee. Then when I was 12 years old my younger brother and I went with my mother to visit her mother in Vienna and lived for six months in her coffeehouse, so I experienced coffee as a site of sociability. But I only started drinking coffee in college when the stuff coming out of our percolator was more a drug to help us study than a tasty beverage.

In graduate school I decided to study the history of Brazil to understand its development. Since my area was political economy and Brazil has been the world’s leading exporter of coffee for over 150 years, it was a natural subject to study.

I also experienced coffee in its three most historically important geographic areas: the United States, Europe and Brazil. Since I became interested in issues of economic development and underdevelopment which led me to world history, coffee emerged as a wonderful vehicle to examine issues of exchange, development, colonialism, imperialism, the Cold War, national identity, public spaces, ecological issues and many more.

Without giving away too much of what you’ll discuss Monday evening, why is it that the story of America’s enthusiasm for coffee is “an unlikely romance” in your view?

I called it an “unlikely romance” because many coffee aficionados discuss coffee’s “romance” and tell stories of dancing goats, spies and military heroes to explain coffee’s global spread. Coffee’s global reach is often treated as something obvious that needs no explanation: people on every continent drink coffee because it tastes good. In fact, there were many barriers to coffee’s diffusion.

In the U.S. we have various stories about coffee’s ties to our national identity linking it to John Smith, colonial coffee houses, the Boston Tea Party, the westward movement and values like liberty, sovereignty, industriousness, battlefields and innovation. Some of that is historically true. Much of it, however, is more sales pitch than historically accurate portrayals.

The “romance” is unlikely also because coffee was not native to the U.S., it does not grow in the U.S., we had no important coffee colonies and most ex-British colonies favor tea over coffee. But I will explain that the U.S. becoming the world’s leading coffee importer does make sense in light of many other historical currents like trade in the Atlantic, immigration from Europe, anti-tax sentiment and coffee’s pharmacological effects.

What role has St. Louis played in the history of coffee?

While St. Louis is not as closely linked to the history of coffee in the U.S. as it is to the history of beer, or tea (British tea publicists claimed the first time iced tea was introduced was at the 1904 World’s Fair [though this is dubious]), it does have a significant role. Missouri was important in disseminating coffee in the U.S. because Independence, Mo., was the starting point of the Santa Fe Trail, and coffee for the Oregon Trail or the wagon trains to California set out from Missouri.

The coffee was imported from South America in New Orleans and then brought up the Mississippi River. By the 1860s-70s, St. Louis had seven coffee roasting companies, which made it a center of coffee roasting in the Midwest. The first commercial coffee roasting machine in the Midwest was worked by James H. Forbes in 1854. In 1911 the National Coffee Roasters’ Traffic and Pure Food Association was founded in St. Louis – a forerunner of first the National Coffee Roasters Association and then the Associated Coffee Industries of America. Coffee traders from St. Louis played significant roles in it. I’m afraid that’s as much as I know about the role of St. Louis in the coffee trade, though I’m hoping to learn more on my visit.

Looking at the history of commodities and the world economy, what lessons do you find for today?

The study of commodities and commodity chains are excellent means of understanding the Janus-headed relationship of coffee growing areas (and other agricultural ones) and coffee importing areas. It allows one to examine not just the economic dimensions of the spread of a global commodity and the international linkages it creates, but also the evolving and sometimes contradictory importance of natural endowment, religion, culture, technology, gender and racial relations to shaping history. It is a means of understanding why the export of commodities has historically created both development in importing countries and sometimes underdevelopment in exporting countries.

Short URL: http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/?p=58726

source: http://www.blogs.umsl.edu / UMSL Daily / by Evie Hemphill / September 09th, 2015

by Debbie Holmes / Trail-Gazette

One of Estes Park’s best kept secrets is Kind Coffee, which is independently owned by Amy Hamrick. She started her coffee house journey 17 years ago.

“I like to think that many of the worlds problems are being solved right here in Kind Coffee,” said Amy. “It’s so wonderful to see friends, and even high school kids, here supporting my business. I’m proud to have established a place where locals want to come.”

Amy’s journey started in 1998 as the Estes Park Coffee Company, which was located in Ed’s Cantina. Amy was instrumental in starting, running and building the roasting business in that location before Ed’s went through ownership and remodeling changes, which opened up the opportunity for Amy to move into the current location where Kind Coffee has stood since 2004.

Even though Kind Coffee doesn’t roast its own coffee beans anymore, the recipes are the shop’s own, and it continues to use only organic, fair trade coffee beans.

“We continue to live up to our name. It’s important to me that my business is environmentally and socially responsible,” Amy said.

Kind Coffee’s philosophies also have morphed into being community-oriented and supportive. Amy enjoys developing various flavors of coffee for organizations and community needs. Following the 2013 flood, Kind coffee produced “Flood Mud” coffee which continues to raise money for flood recovery.

“Being able to do things for the community is so important to me,” Amy added.

She says that building her business hasn’t been as hard as she had thought, “when it’s from the heart, decisions are easy. It’s been fantastic to have opportunities. All opportunities, good and bad.”

Amy mentioned that she has always had the most amazing staff to help her along this journey.

“I was so thankful for the support of her staff, friends and community members during those tough months after the 2013 flood. There were probably 100 people here helping us during the flood and for months after,” Amy said. “It really touched me when I saw people out in the community and they’d ask me when we were going to open, because they missed us so much.”

Being an independent coffee shop has its draw backs at times.

“It’s important that all independent coffee shops continue to provide and be the best so that our industry stays strong and visitors don’t walk past us to visit one of the big-chain coffee shops,” explained Amy. “It makes us have to step up, work hard and always do the best that we can.”

Amy is proud of what Kind Coffee has become and enjoys going to work every day. Kind Coffee, 470 Elkhorn E. Ave., is open every day at 6:30 a.m. During the summer it closes around 8 p.m. The shop will close at 6 p.m. in the winter and spring.

Along with their delicious coffee and full menu of drinks and food items, Kind also has other fair trade items for sale. Check out the shop’s website at www.kindcoffee.com for more information.

source: http://www.eptrail.com / Estee Park Trail Gazette / Home> Story / by Debbie Homes, Trial-Gazette / July 29th, 2015