America is coffee-obsessed. From Central Perk’s red couch being the centre of major plot twists in Friends to the fact the average American drank more than two cups a day.

And the conventional explanation is pretty straightforward: an English colonist introduces coffee to Jamestown in 1607. 150 years later Americans rebel against the British by throwing tea chests into Boston harbour and drinking coffee becomes their patriotic duty. Oh, and of course who won the civil war? The side that had the coffee.

But, actually, the truth is much more surprising, and reveals a much more counter-intuitive story of America.

In this final episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we offer you a story of America through the lens of a black drink, another black drink, a third black drink and perhaps even a fourth.

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’.

Don't miss future episodes by pressing the 'Subscribe' or 'Follow' button in your podcast player.

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

Write a review on Apple Podcasts (http://apple.co/3jY42aJ)

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3K2h4RQ)

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for your home and coffee bar for almost 100 years

(https://bit.ly/3U3oLMz)

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast (https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e)

Download all episodes of this second series right now by subscribing to the ‘A History of Coffee’ podcast channel (http://bit.ly/2NArChO)

Learn how Brazil massively expanded output in episode three of the first series of A History of Coffee: Coffee Catches Fire (https://bit.ly/2NArChO)

Brew up some Yaupon Holly! (https://bit.ly/40R6IuY)

Discover Deb Hunter's All Things Tudor podcast (https://bit.ly/3L5OZet)

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

One morning back in the ‘80s, Howard Schultz walks out of his Milan hotel, stumbles into an espresso bar, and fundamentally changes coffee history.

He discovered (and then popularises) the iconic, timeless Italian coffee experience: Rich thick coffee, an affordable price and great theatre.

But this Italian ritual is surprisingly young, so young that Howard Schultz was in school while some of it was being developed!

In this third episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we show you why for most of Italy’s history, coffee was thin, expensive, dull to watch…and that’s if you were lucky enough to even be drinking the real stuff at all!

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’.

-----------

Don't miss future episodes by pressing the 'Subscribe' or 'Follow' button in your podcast player

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

Write a review on Apple Podcasts (http://apple.co/3jY42aJ)

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3K2h4RQ)

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for your home and coffee bar for almost 100 years

(https://bit.ly/3U3oLMz)

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast (https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e)

Download all episodes of this second series right now by subscribing to the ‘A History of Coffee’ podcast channel (http://bit.ly/2NArChO)

James' science podcast about Espresso Machine Technology

Neapolitan coffee maker (https://bit.ly/3zZCivl)

Espresso at 1906 World’s Fair in Milan (https://bit.ly/3MOX7kQ)

Rancilio's Museum, Officina Rancilio 1926 (https://bit.ly/3Q7vqTI)

"La Cornuta" espresso machine (https://bit.ly/41uBryd)

Rancilio's Berlin Showroom, the BER Rancilio Station (https://bit.ly/3mD0lNA)

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

Haiti was once the biggest, most profitable coffee growing region in the world.

But today Haiti is one of the world’s poorest nations where you can’t get a bag of Haitian beans delivered to Berlin in a week for love nor money.

In this second episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we show you how colonialism and racism dragged Haiti into poverty, and the role of coffee at the centre of it.

Be warned: this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence.

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’.

-----------

Don't miss future episodes by pressing the 'Subscribe' or 'Follow' button in your podcast player

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

Write a review on Apple Podcasts (http://apple.co/3jY42aJ)

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3K2h4RQ)

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for your home and coffee bar for almost 100 years

(https://bit.ly/3U3oLMz)

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast (https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e)

Download all episodes of this second series right now by subscribing to the ‘A History of Coffee’ podcast channel (http://bit.ly/2NArChO)

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

A coffee shop is a lot more than just a place to drink coffee. The seats and sofas encourage you to invite a friend, and chat.

And chatting is powerful: ideas that emerge from these caffeine-fuelled conversations give birth to modern finance and even the founding of great artistic and scientific institutions.

Meanwhile, other ideas threaten those in power, and have led to many attempts to ban coffeeshops (and even coffee itself!) these last 500 years.

In the first episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we show you how the coffee shop changed the world, and we ask whether it still has what it takes to upend society.

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’.

-----------

Don't miss future episodes by pressing the 'Subscribe' or 'Follow' button in your podcast player

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

Write a review on Apple Podcasts (http://apple.co/3jY42aJ)

Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3K2h4RQ)

This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for your home and coffee bar for almost 100 years

(https://bit.ly/3U3oLMz)

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast (https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e)

Download all episodes of this second series right now by subscribing to the ‘A History of Coffee’ podcast channel (http://bit.ly/2NArChO)

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

We're back with more stories about the tiny psychoactive seed that changed the world and continues to shape our lives today.

In Series Two, we reveal how the invention of the coffee shop revolutionised societies, why colonialism, racism and coffee have kept once prosperous Haiti poor today, how Italy's revered espresso culture was created, and we debunk many myths around America's supposed love affair with coffee.

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 Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for almost 100 years.

Join us live at the London Coffee Festival 2023! We have three time slots for you to choose from: Saturday, 22 April, 11:00-11:30 and 14:30-15:00, and Sunday, 23 April,14:30-15:00.

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

We have an exciting announcement....AND, a story about Sri Lanka and coffee history we think you're really going to like.

Sri Lankan coffee has delicious notes of chocolate and caramel. But it’s basically impossible to find, and we’re going to bet you’ve never drank it.

But that's really odd, because Sri Lanka has the perfect climate to grow coffee, and was once one of the biggest coffee growing countries in the world.

But Sri Lanka was the victim of an ecological ticking time bomb. And this bomb is still ticking, and is going to explode again.

In this episode of Adventures in Coffee, producer James Harper takes co-hosts Scott and Jools on an adventure back in time, across Ethiopia, Yemen, Sri Lanka to trace the origins of this ticking bomb, and what it’s going to take to defuse it.

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Subscribe to Adventures in Coffee here: https://bit.ly/300V4jS

Listen to Jonathan's guest appearance on negative coffee advertising here: https://bit.ly/3uOXYc0

Read Stuart McCook’s excellent book, Coffee Is Not Forever: https://bit.ly/3320rob

Listen to James’ stories about El Salvador on his Filter Stories channel: https://spoti.fi/3Lcnuhg

Help other people find the show by leaving a rating on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3JYduHY

Help others find the show by creating a screengrab of this episode on your podcast player and sharing it on your Instagram stories. Tag us and we’ll reshare it!

Scott Bentley / Caffeine Magazine: https://bit.ly/3oijQ91

Jools Walker / Lady Velo: http://bit.ly/39VRGew

James Harper / Filter Stories: https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O

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

A massive thanks to Lawrence Goldberg of Hansa Coffee, Ajantha Palihawadana, Professor Stuart McCook and Harm van Oudenhoven.

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

Coffee has a fascinating history stretching back hundreds of years. But tea takes it to the next level, stretching back thousands.

And it too was colonised by Europeans with huge repercussions that we are still feeling today.

We hope you enjoy episode 11 from the excellent The Tea History podcast: Europeans Discover Tea, produced by Laszlo Montgomery.

Listen to the rest of The Tea History Podcast: https://bit.ly/3BnDjgr

Explore Laszlo's The Chinese Sayings Podcast: https://bit.ly/3BiITAT

Discover The China History Podcast: https://bit.ly/3GTekmd

Sign up for the 2022 Barista League's High Density (free!) conference here: https://bit.ly/3BjAI78

Visit Jonathan’s Instagram (https://bit.ly/37eMS3F) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3jNr9ou)

& James’ Filter Stories Instagram (https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3baTsJk)

Help other people find the show by leaving a review on...

Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3jY42aJ

Castbox: http://bit.ly/38sXdcH

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

Each sip of coffee we drink is steeped in dark colonial past.

The reason we can enjoy it every morning is because it's relatively cheap, and many people suffered under European colonisers to create systems that produced this cheap coffee.

But unfortunately, that's just the beginning. Colonialism has stripped enslaved and indigenous people of their language, pushed their descendants into work that a modern European would never do, and created racial ideologies that persist and harm people of colour to this day.

In this bonus episode of A History of Coffee, documentary maker James Harper moderates a conversation between Professor Peter D'Sena, a leading historian from the decolonising academic movement, and Professor Jonathan Morris, author of Coffee: A Global History.

They explore how colonialism shaped coffee, and what a cup of coffee that seeks to address the damage of colonialism would look like.

Help other people find the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3jY42aJ

How would you decolonise coffee? Start a conversation with us on social media.

Jonathan Morris' Instagram (https://bit.ly/37eMS3F) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3jNr9ou)

Peter D'Sena Instagram (https://bit.ly/34WvPl5) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3ggSlKL)

James Harper’s Filter Stories Instagram (https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3baTsJk)

If you an educator and are interested in decolonising your curriculum, Peter wrote a guide here: https://bit.ly/3cvoH3l

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

We are hard at work on the bonus episode about decolonising coffee history.

But...in the meantime, here's an episode from a sister podcast we think you'll enjoy.

You can listen to more episodes from Adventures in Coffee here: https://bit.ly/300V4jS

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.

Do you grind your beans fresh before brewing your coffee? If so, you are helping overturn a race-to–the-bottom with deep roots in colonial extraction that today is leaving millions of coffee farmers impoverished.

Or, at least, that’s what many specialty coffee companies would like you to believe. The truth is a lot less rosy.

In this final episode of A History of Coffee, Jonathan and James explore where the specialty coffee movement came from, whether it will succeed in arresting coffee’s race-to-the-bottom, and look into the future to understand what might be the future of coffee.

Visit Jonathan’s Instagram (https://bit.ly/37eMS3F) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3jNr9ou)

& James’ Filter Stories Instagram (https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O) and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3baTsJk)

Help other people find the show by leaving a review on...

Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3jY42aJ

Castbox: http://bit.ly/38sXdcH

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

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e

Music featured in this episode:

La Traviata, Brindisi (Verdi) by MIT Symphony Orchestra: https://bit.ly/3eGUsIf

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly by Ann Alee: https://bit.ly/2SKlaY6

Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.