To Make a Cup of Coffee, It Takes More Than a Village

A journey of thanks for a simple daily pleasure reveals the miracle of a globalized
economy

I recently had the opportunity to gaze at one of the most mind-boggling accomplishments in history.
This marvel is the result ofthousands of human beings collaborating across
dozens of countries. It required the combined labor of artists, biologists, politicians, mechanics,
miners and goatherds. It took airplanes, boats, trucks, motorcycles, vans, pallets and
shoulders. It depended on a vast range of materials, from steel and wood to explosives and bat
guano. It relied on ancient wisdom and space-age technology, on freezing temperatures and
scorching heat.

It is my morning cup of coffee.

For most of my life, I rarely thought about my coffee unless it spilled on my jacket or scalded the
roof of my mouth. But earlier this year, on a dare from my son -- and in an attempt to battle my
default mental state of generalized annoyance -- I undertook adeceptively simple quest. I
pledged to thank every person who had even the smallest role in making my cup of coffee a reality:
the barista, the farmer and everyone in between.

It turned out to be not so simple a project. For instance, the coffee beans are driven to my local cafe
in a van, so I had to thank the driver. But he couldn't do his job without the road -- so I had to thank
the pavers. And the road would be dangerous without the yellow lines -- so I had to thank the folks
who made the paint.

I ended up thanking a thousand people. But if I had the time, it could have been 10,000. Or a million.
Our modern lives depend on radical interconnection.

Admittedly, I encountered some skepticism. "Is this some sort of pyramid scheme?" I was
asked more than once, when I called tothank someone out of the blue. But the vast
majority of thankees were surprisingly receptive. I remember calling the woman who does pest
control for the warehouse where the coffee is stored. "I know this sounds strange," I said, "but I just
want to thank you for helping to keep the bugs out of my coffee." "That is strange," she said, "but you
made my day."

Since I don't drink my coffee out of a spigot, I thanked the cup-makers as well. One of my favorite
conversations was when I called to thank the man who designed the lid for my coffee cup. Never
could I have imagined the amount of thought that went into this 2.5-inch piece of plastic. The
designer, Doug Fleming, is quite an innovator -- the Elon Musk of cup tops, but
perhaps more emotionally stable.

"Coffee is not farm to cup," he points out. "It's farm to face." Among his many improvements, Mr.
Fleming designed a crescent-shaped sipping hole on the inner lip of the lid. The hole isn't flat on the
lid, as with most covers. This, he says, makes the coffee flow more smoothly. You don't
need to pucker your lips, which means you get a better "retronasal experience." I'm not 100% sure
what this means, honestly, but it reminded me that if something is done well, the process behind it is
largely invisible.
To make his lids, Mr. Fleming had to import special machine tools (previously used in making
raspberry containers) from Canada. We may be living in a moment of tribalism and nationalism,
but it's important to remember: It doesn't just take a village to make acup of coffee. It takes the world.

Consider my trip to Nieva, the mountain town in Colombia where my coffee beans are grown. I was
driven along dirt roads to the small farm owned by the Guarnizo family, nine brothers and a sister.
The Guarnizos took me on a tour -- the coffee plants with the red cherries that hold the beans, the
chickens the size of adult pit bulls -- and I thanked them for helping wake me up every day with
their coffee.

The Guarnizos responded that they couldn't do their job without a hundred other people. The
machine they use to depulp the fruit is made in Brazil. They drive around the farm on a pickup truck
with parts from all over the world.

My coffee is only 1.2% coffee-bean powder. The rest is water, so I figured I needed to thank the
people who provide water to New York City. I went upstate to meet some of the thousands of people
who work on the reservoir that makes it possible for me to turn a knob and have drinkable water. I
thanked chemists, engineers and the staff people who scoop up deer manure before a rainstorm
so it doesn't foul the reservoir.

It was a reminder that millions of people around the world have to spend hours walking to the
nearest well to get clean water. This raised an important point: Gratitude should inspire us to action,
not make us complacent. So I donated to Dispensers for Safe Water, an organization that
helps to provide clean water in Africa.

One of my final trips was to visit to a steel mill in Indiana to thank the steelworkers. They forge the
metal used in coffee machines, trucks and bridges. I met with several steelworkers who had been
there for decades. They were thankful to still have a job, despite its hardships. They spoke at length
about their bouts of carbon monoxide poisoning, which laid them out for days. "It was like the worst
hangover," one told me, much to the seeming alarm of the steel PR woman nearby. But he added,
"I'm not sorry I stayed here. It paid for two kids to go through college, and a house, and a car, and
everything else."

In the short term, these folks may or may not be helped by the new tariffs imposed by the Trump
administration. But I believe that in the long term, as the majority of economists will tell you, trade
barriers are an impediment to progress. Globalization has downsides, and these Indiana
steelworkers might be a casualty. But free trade has been a great boon to humanity. The global
poverty rate has fallen, lifespans have jumped. Consumers have been given access to a dizzying
variety of goods. As the Stanford economics professor Russ Roberts says, "We already tried 'Buy
local.' It's called the Middle Ages."

By A. J. Jacobs | Nov 10, 2018

TOPICS: Supply Chain

SUMMARY: The author explores the supply chain for a cup of coffee.

CLASSROOM APPLICATION: Students will explore and discover the expansiveness and
interconnections of the supply chain.

QUESTIONS:

1. (Introductory) How did the author explore the supply chain for a cup of coffee? How many
people (estimated) are involved?

2. (Introductory) How many "tiers" in the supply chain of a cup of coffee did the author explore?
How many of these tiers do you believe actually communicate with one another?

3. (Introductory) What is the bullwhip effect? Why is this an important concept for supply chains
like those explored in the article?

4. (Advanced) With how many "tiers" of your suppliers does your company directly communicate?
What would be the benefits of communicating with other supply chain partners?

5. (Advanced) What is Supply Chain Management? Why is this an increasingly important

discipline? In what ways is your company practicing Supply Chain Management?

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT:

As a small group pick a simple retail product to explore. Explore the suppliers needed to create this
retail product. Be specific: try to discover the real supplier names for this real retail product. Now, try
to explore backwards to those suppliers' suppliers. Compare your results to your classmates; winner
gets class bragging rights. Which team was able to identify the most suppliers? Which team was
able to identify at least one supplier at the most supplier tiers?