{"id":24997,"date":"2017-09-19T10:28:08","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T14:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?post_type=r_cas_magazine&p=24997"},"modified":"2017-11-03T12:06:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T16:06:30","slug":"devoted-to-coffee","status":"publish","type":"r_cas_magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/arts-sciences\/fall-2017\/devoted-to-coffee\/","title":{"rendered":"Devoted to Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Julia Shaw (CAS\u201918) volunteered with a nonprofit that helps small coffee farmers. Photos courtesy of Shaw<\/p>\n

By Amy Laskowski<\/p>\n

Most Starbucks baristas can\u2019t say they have picked, roasted, and brewed their own cup of coffee. Julia Shaw has them beat. In 2017, a passion for coffee brought Shaw (CAS\u201918) to Central and South America for nine months, where the urban sustainability major worked with a nonprofit that strives to improve the lives and livelihoods of coffee farmers.<\/p>\n

Shaw\u2019s java affair started with a job at Blue State Coffee on Comm Ave; her manager\u2019s zeal for coffee inspired Shaw to treat it like more than just a job. \u201cHer passion spread to me and I fell in love with it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Like many serious coffeehouses, Blue State sends a manager each year on what it calls an origin trip<\/a> to taste the different coffees it\u2019s considering selling. Shaw, who had recently enrolled in a Spanish-language program at the Universidad de Palermo<\/a> in Buenos Aires (she\u2019s a Spanish minor and the courses would count toward her program), decided to design her own origin-esque trip before classes began. \u201cI wanted to see how coffee was produced,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t even know that coffee starts out as a fruit. I wanted to go and fully immerse myself in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Julia
Shaw\u00a0made her own coffee from scratch, harvesting,\u00a0processing, and roasting beans she’d picked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She signed on to volunteer with the Guatemala-based De La Gente<\/a> (\u201cFrom the People\u201d), a nonprofit that works with small farmers and cooperatives, helping them grow and sell coffee.<\/p>\n

For one month, she lived with host families in Ciudad Vieja, about 15 minutes outside of Antigua, Guatemala, following the farmers as they ascended volcanoes to pick the coffee cherries (which contain the coffee beans) and carry the fruit down in a basket balanced on her head. The beans were picked out, processed and sorted, then roasted and packaged. Lower-grade beans were sold in local markets, the rest was exported to North America.<\/p>\n

The crash course in coffee production compelled Shaw to brew her own cup, which started after she squirreled away a water bottle\u2019s worth of the cherries. \u201cI did all the processing myself, and at the end I roasted them in a little sample roaster, so I can literally say I picked, processed, roasted, and drank my own cup of coffee. I think that\u2019s something that pretty few baristas can say.\u201d The achievement means a lot to Shaw, who suspects most consumers don\u2019t know enough about where their food comes from.<\/p>\n

She also learned a lot about how climate change may threaten coffee growers. A recent report<\/a> commissioned by FairTrade and written by the Climate Institute<\/a> predicts that without strong actions to reduce emissions, by 2050 half of the land now used to grow coffee will no longer support a coffee crop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the classroom, we talk so much about how climate change is ruining the world,\u201d says the former sustainability@BU<\/a> intern, \u201cbut then to hear farmers talk about lower yields, and a coffee fungus that is being spread because of warmer air temperatures, was really eye-opening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaw, who created her own major studying urban sustainability through CAS, says her experiences in Guatemala and Buenos Aires, where she also worked as a barista, will enrich her studies back at BU. The major combines her interests in urban and environmental studies by incorporating courses from environmental science, sociology, international relations, political science, and urban affairs. She describes her dream job as working with coffee farmers and an American company that imports their coffee, something she refers to as relationship farming. \u201cI want to help everyone realize better, more sustainable ways to grow coffee,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAS student took her major to the field, and learned exactly how a cup of joe is made<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26351,"template":"","department":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/24997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/r_cas_magazine"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/24997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26672,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/24997\/revisions\/26672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"r_cas_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=24997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}