Date of Award

4-2016

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Dr. Bilinda Straight

Second Advisor

Dr. Vincent Lyon-Callo

Third Advisor

Dr. Jon Holtzman

Keywords

Coffee, single-origin, Jamaica, poetry, photography

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

In today's coffee industry, individual farmers’ identities are hardly visible from the products we buy. Each coffee farmer has different lifestyles and methods of coffee farming. Such information about farmers can make each cups of coffee potentially unique in consumers’ experience. However, there are barriers which make consumers blind from the identities of the farmers making their coffee. I will explain about the barriers, and introduce the way to make consumers associate individual farmers' identities with each cup of coffee they drink. This thesis mainly consists of two parts: a theoretical part and a poetry part. There is a small section of background information of Blue Mountain before the part of poetry. The theoretical part is written to give readers an objective perspective on the coffee industry, especially on the financial and image hierarchy inside the industry. I will discuss the single origin coffee approach as the potential solution for the issue. The poetry part examines how coffee is made from the coffee growers’ perspective. The theoretical part utilizes information gleaned from documents and other records about the farmers’ living circumstances and the structures and mechanisms of local and international coffee industries. The poetry part utilizes information acquired from documents about the history of coffee growing in the Blue Mountain area in Jamaica and inspiration acquired through interviews and observation of the farmers in the Blue Mountain area.

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