Yesterday a package arrived, sent from my friend A. in Boston. Opening the package, I found the delectable contents of the most delicious vice: Arabic Coffee. Delighted, I examined a 200 gram bag of Cafe Najjar classic. According to one website “Mr. Najjar started his family business so long ago the name is almost synonymous with coffee on the Middle Eastern restaurant circuit.” Opening the vaccum-sealed package and inhaling deeply, I noticed the coffee seasoned thick with cardamon. I could hardly wait to prepare my first cup in a copper cezve recently acquired from a café Cubano a few blocks off from Avenida Cuauhtemoc in the colonia Navarte.
Despite the buzzing anticipation for the only coffee that profoundly satisfies both blood and palette, I had to wonder: What is the true cost of this (mouth-watering) vice?
A closer reflection:
The coffee was grown by campesinos in Brazil. After the labor-intensive harvest, the beans traveled an unknown distance from Brazilian farm to Brazilian port.
Presumably exported from São Paulo, Brazil, the beans were shipped to Beirut, Lebanon, traveling an approximate 7238.5 miles, or 11,649.3 kilometers.
In Beirut, the beans, revered with an “awed respect due to the aura of mystique and mystery developing around them,” were roasted, finely ground and mixed with cardamon (which may have come from as far as the Kerala region of India, meaning the cardamon may have had a travel distance of 3108.4 miles, or 5002.5 kilometers.)
Packaged and vacuum-sealed, the coffee was exported from Beirut and arrived to the Eastern coast of the United States, traveling an approximate 5432.9 miles, or 8743.4 kilometers.
After being purchased in Boston, my friend mailed me the package. Arriving to Mexico City, the coffee had travled another 2276.8 miles, or 3664.2 kilometers.
Going back to my original question, “What is the true cost of this vice?“, it is reasonable to say that for a 200 gram bag of Lebanese coffee, the cost could be roughly based on the 18,056 miles (or 29,059 kilometers) that the coffee traveled first from a plantation to Brazil to a roaster in Lebanon to a shop in Boston to Mexico City into my waiting cup.
With this mileage, I leave it up to you to calculate the true cost of the coffee, although I will argue stubbornly to say there’s no cost too high to satiate this vice.
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