What's Brewing

Coffee was first discovered in Africa, when Ethiopian farmers noticed their goats changed their behavior and became more active after chewing on coffee cherries. Soon after, coffee was consumed as a natural energy bar. It is still common practice among African cultures to chew on different strong stimulants early in the morning before farming or even going to war.  It was later, during the middle ages, when Middle Eastern traders brought the African coffee beans to Arabia and started growing and exporting their own coffee. These traders also started brewing their coffee the same way they brewed many other spices,...

The coffee industry as a whole is a family business. It is one of the largest commercial commodities in the market and 80% of the world’s coffee is grown by small-scale farmers. I find it mind blowing to think that the world at large relies so heavily on small family farms responsible for growing, drying, and exporting the beans growing in their fields. How can these family businesses across the world remain so successful? Here are the three pillars of their success.   A Spirit of Service   Service is a two way street. It may be directed to a...

Various outlets have been encouraging people to start their Christmas shopping early due to the global supply chain disruption and the fact that it does not seem it will be fixed in time for the Holidays season. Maybe this is the year we take a leaf from Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the classics written to inspire us and remind us what Christmas is all about.  My hope is that this year we raise the quality of our gifts. Given that buying what is in-style, or what advertisements have convinced us we must have is...

It was the fifties and the world was changing, when a group of Colombian coffee growers stepped into a skyscraper in New York City and met with the advertising giant William Bernbach. They wanted to sell coffee in America, but more than that, they wanted to show Americans what coffee meant to them and hopefully America could come to see and love coffee as they loved it.  Bernbach was already famous for having said, “The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.” This statement deeply resonated with his work; instead of creating a flashy character, Bernbach created Juan Valdez,...

Most of the stories about Teddy Roosevelt are simply unbelievable. Perhaps if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a President and naturally so much of his life was lived in public and consequently well recorded, he could have simply become a legend of a man we wished existed.    As a kid, Roosevelt repeatedly came face to face with death. He suffered from asthma attacks which put pressure on his heart and according to the family doctor it affected his overall development, making him a small, skinny child. At the time the treatments for asthma were very limited...

At times it is daunting to acknowledge the fact that slavery has been a constant theme of our world’s history. It is also inspiring to see civilians such as William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglas, and Martin Luther King become renowned heroes. They dedicated their lives and work to change the status quo and open the gates for a more fair world. Thanks to their relentless work, justice systems around the world lean favorably against slavery; but sadly, modern slavery still exists and some alarming statistics even suggest that slavery is currently at its worst.   What is the job of our...