Stories over Coffee: Telling the Tale of the New Coffee Commodity Chain Date: January 22, 2018 Master’s Thesis by Student number: s1439723 Tutor: Freek Janssens Matthijs Smit Words: Approx. 27,000 Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences i Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology ii After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. – Philip Pullman, fantasy writer. The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come. – Steve Jobs, CEO. Come for the story, stay for the coffee. – Skip, specialty coffee roaster. iii Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. vii 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Once upon a Time, in Coffeeland… ............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Communicative Context and Research Questions ........................................................................ 3 2. Theoretical Foundation .................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Storytelling .................................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Morality and Quality ..................................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Marketing .................................................................................................................................... 10 2.4 Visibility ..................................................................................................................................... 12 3. Methods ............................................................................................................................................ 15 3.1 Research Outline ......................................................................................................................... 16 List of Respondents ............................................................................................................................. 18 3.2 Sampling and Research Methods ................................................................................................ 20 3.3 Limitations and Ethics ................................................................................................................ 22 4. The Story: Moving Beyond Fair Trade ......................................................................................... 23 4.1 The Rise and Fall of Fair Trade .................................................................................................. 25 4.2 New Coffee and the Story of Impact .......................................................................................... 29 4.3 Coffee and Morality .................................................................................................................... 33 4.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 37 5. The Audience: Education and Differentiation ............................................................................. 39 5.1 Follow the Bean: Value through Supply Chain Education ......................................................... 41 5.2 Coffee and Quality ...................................................................................................................... 44 5.3 The Audience Talks Back ........................................................................................................... 48 5.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 54 iv 6. The Narrators: Look Who’s Talking ............................................................................................ 55 6.1 Meeting the Educators ................................................................................................................ 57 6.2 Coffee Professionalism and the Act of Storytelling .................................................................... 60 6.3 Coffee and Marketing ................................................................................................................. 65 6.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 68 7. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 69 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 72 v List of Figures All pictures were taken and edited by the author, unless otherwise mentioned. All other pictures are accessible in the public domain. Figure 1: Specialty coffee bar in Leiden ................................................................................................ 1 Figure 2: Roasting profiles .................................................................................................................... 5 Figure 3: Field notes and notebook ...................................................................................................... 15 Figure 4: Story. Image taken from the Max Havelaar website ................................................................ cut to show relevant aspects .................................................................................................................. 23 Figure 5: Audience. Image taken from a specialty coffee bar‟s .............................................................. website that gives barista courses. Cut and edited to avoid ...................................................................... company names. .................................................................................................................................... 39 Figure 6: Audience education. Cupping session led by Moxa‟s Q-grader .......................................... 44 Figure 7: Vignette I. Storage at a specialty coffee company in Maasdijk ........................................... 50 Figure 8: Audience engagement. Coffee and info card supplied at a ..................................................... specialty coffee bar in Amsterdam. Cut and edited to not show .............................................................. company names ..................................................................................................................................... 53 Figure 9: Narrators. Image taken from Moxa‟s Instagram page. ............................................................. Cut and edited to not show company names ......................................................................................... 55 Figure 10: Vignette II. Moxa‟s office building. ................................................................................... 56 Figure 11: Vignette III. Coffee presentation by Moxa......................................................................... 61 vi Acknowledgements I would like to thank Erik Bähre for his support of my ideas in the conceptual stage of my work, and Erik de Maaker for his support throughout the course. This thesis would not have been possible without his support and that of many great people at the Faculty, and Leiden University. Especially, I cannot thank my tutor, Freek Janssens, enough, for his patience and understanding in what was to be a hectic writing process. The kind conversations and happy cheers we shared during our meetings were a welcome supplement to this writing. Warm thanks go out to all the lovely people at the Amsterdam coffee company I spent time with. Their invigorating and informative conversation was a personal as well as a professional pleasure. I humbly thank Skip, for taking me under his wing and showing me the ropes of coffee roasting, and Lennart, for inviting me on his coffee journeys. And of course, I am thankful for every cup of coffee I was served by many other wonderful people I met in the field. I am extremely grateful to have the supportive parents I do, who have continued to guide and encourage me since the start of my academic endeavors. On the flipside, I‟d like to thank all of my lovely roommates who have continued to encourage me to relax from time to time. Lastly, I would like to thank my beloved Robin, for helping me power through fits of frustration or misery, and of course for accompanying me as a coffee drinking buddy. vii viii 1. Introduction 1.1 Once upon a Time, in Coffeeland… The Amsterdam Coffee Festival is a place of great diversity. It is March 9th, and it is the „industry day‟ for coffee roasters, traders, importers, exporters, suppliers, baristas and investors. Everywhere, the powerful aroma of freshly roasted coffee is present, among the bearded and aproned young coffee geeks as well as the suited CEOs. Almost all of them are working in start-ups or small time roasters.