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 have safeguarded this genetic treasure often don’t earn enough from coffee to make preservation the obvious economic choice.

Could a great story be the answer to earn higher premiums for these communities? Could that story be that all the coffee we drink today can actually be traced back to a single “mother tree” in Ethiopia?

This episode is about the history of coffee in Ethiopia, how far back the evidence goes, what counts as evidence, and what we should celebrate (and pay for) when we buy “wild” Ethiopian coffee today.

Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!

Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.

Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.

Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’

Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Discover how James makes these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to his Substack newsletter

Enjoy James’ Standart article about Avicenna and the earliest (supposed) written reference to coffee

Read the scientific paper pinpointing where wild coffee forests are in Ethiopia

Follow Solomon Tselele's work through his Facebook page

Learn more about the Ethiopian coffee ceremony on the Adventures in Coffee podcast

Series 3 of A History of Coffee is a collaboration between documentary maker James Harper of the Filter Stories coffee podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of ‘Coffee: A Global History’.

Ethiopian forest sounds curtesy of George Vlad. Hear more nature sounds here.

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 Europe’s most important cities.

But then the story flips because, once coffee changed Hamburg, Hamburg began to change coffee.

Series 3 of A History of Coffee is a collaboration between documentary maker James Harper of the Filter Stories coffee podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of ‘Coffee: A Global History’.

Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!

Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.

Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.

Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’ (https://amzn.to/3dihAfU)

Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Pick up a copy of Margrit Schulte Beerbühl’s book, Kaffee Ist Fertig!

Read James’ article on Frederick the Great’s attempt to ban coffee in Standart

Go on your own Hamburg coffee tour!

Giant bean

Speicherstadt Museum

Burg Coffee Museum in the Speicherstadt

Becking, 100 year old coffee roasters

1950s Rebuilt Coffee Exchange - and an Instagram post coming on @filterstoriespodcast

Go deeper into the story of Mahlkönig’s grinders

Early EKs - post coming on @filterstoriespodcast

DK (aka Donkey Kong Dreiphasen Kaffeemühle)

Grind-by-Sync espresso grinders

EK Omnia

Guatemala

Matt Perger WBC routine demonstrating the EK

Filter Stories episode on grinding curves

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 happens when our worst nightmare comes true: coffee disappears from the shelves. What did people brew instead? Was any of it actually drinkable?

And we tell the story of how coffee can shape the massive port city of Hamburg, and how Hamburg then went on to shape the global coffee world.

If we want to make coffee a more equitable industry that’s also kinder to the environment, a place to start is understanding the stories and systems that put the coffee into your cup this morning.

Press the ‘Subscribe’ button so you don’t miss future episodes. A History of Coffee is a collaboration between documentary maker James Harper of the Filter Stories coffee podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of ‘Coffee: A Global History’. Follow us on Instagram! Jonathan Morris @coffeehistoryjm and James Harper @filterstoriespodcast. This free educational content was made possible with the support of Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-class grinders for 100 years. Subscribe to The Science of Coffee podcast

For twenty years, the 2004 cupping form profoundly shaped the specialty coffee world.

But on the hillsides of coffee farms, some of the form’s byproducts have been disadvantaging producers.

In this episode, we follow two producers whose lives collided with the myth of universal quality. These stories reveal how a single idea of “quality” can close doors for the people with the least power in the supply chain.

The new coffee evaluation form, the CVA, is still young, and with any luck it will keep evolving. I hope for a form that can empower even the smallest producers.

Please support my work directly at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Other ways you can help:

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Go deeper into the story of quality:

The original Filter Stories episode about Murray Cooper in Ecuador, Firefly

Specialty Coffee Association's new Coffee Value Assessment

2004 cupping form from the Specialty Coffee Association of America

SCAA Coffee Cuppers Handbook (4th edition, 2011)

Kenneth Liberman's book, "Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity"

SCA's video series on the CVA presented by Peter Giuliano

If you ask two specialty professionals what makes a high-quality coffee, you’ll likely get a surprisingly consistent answer: clean, sweet, juicy, bright. To an outsider, they would be forgiven for thinking coffee quality is universally defined.

But the truth is more sober.

In this episode, we examine how a simple cupping form helped create a universal idea of quality. We then look at the evidence that, in fact, it’s just the personal preferences of a small group of people masquerading as universal quality.

Please support my work directly at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Other ways you can help:

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Go deeper into the story of quality:

2004 cupping form from the Specialty Coffee Association of America

SCAA Coffee Cuppers Handbook (4th edition, 2011)

Cup of Excellence cupping form

Kenneth Liberman's book, "Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity"

SCA's video series on the CVA presented by Peter Giuliano

For the longest time, coffees were dull and bitter. But then a small group of pioneers changed the world.

In this episode, we travel back to the 1960s and ’70s to meet the trailblazers who realised coffees could taste distinctive: sweeter, brighter, cleaner.

We discover how their personal preferences became a movement, then a form, and eventually a global definition of “quality”.

Please support my work directly at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Other ways you can help:

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Go deeper into the story of quality:

Specialty Coffee Association's new Coffee Value Assessment

2004 cupping form from the Specialty Coffee Association of America

SCAA Coffee Cuppers Handbook (4th edition, 2011)

Michael Sheridan of CQI discussing the inter-organisational politics behind the Houston Expo announcement on Lee Safar's Map It Forward podcast

For the longest time, the coffee community only cared about water’s impact ruining espresso machine boilers and kettles. But what about water’s impact on coffee flavour?

In this episode, I tell the story of how the specialty coffee community came to understand water chemistry: the pioneering work of the computational chemist Christopher Hendon and British roaster Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, the genesis of the SCA’s Water Quality Handbook, and where we are today understanding the impact of minerals on our water.

I strongly recommend listening to the two episodes before this one first Getting great water for coffee, step-by-step & The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them

Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee! Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Want to go deeper into water chemistry?

Read the SCA’s Water Quality Handbook BWT White Paper on the effects of magnesium (German) Christopher Hendon’s Instagram where he’ll announce his new version of his book, Water for Coffee Do an online Certificate of Advanced Studies at the Coffee Excellence Centre

Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat

Note: this is a reworked version of my 2022 episode Water for Brewing Coffee, including portions of my 2024 episode How to think like a scientist, part 2.

550 million years ago, earth was perfect. We had perfect water for coffee AND we were living in a vegetarian paradise!

But then Earth changed—violently. The planet shifted from a peaceful, plant-eating paradise to a darker, more brutal world. And in this new world, the chemistry of water was forever altered.

This is the wild story of how earth-shaking forces and the spirits of long-dead critters ruin your coffees today.

This story will help you remember the two invisible ingredients in your water that have a huge impact on coffee flavour and your brewing equipment: calcium and hydrogen carbonate.

Read Marcia Bjonerud’s amazing book, Reading the Rocks

Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee! Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat

Note: this is a reworked version of my 2022 episode Water for Brewing Coffee.