Making Better Coffee. How Maya Farmers and Third Wave Tastemakers Create Value (2022)

By Edward F. Fischer

Abstract

Anthropology Professor Edward Fischer gives us an insight on twenty-first century global political economy by analyzing how economic gain is conceived and produced within processes of high-end coffee commercialization. The creation of value is the main topic of this ethnographic research, carried out between the United States and Guatemala’s highlands. Focusing on attempts to build social relationships through Third Wave coffee trade, the author goes beyond standard definitions of coffee as a commodity, by taking into consideration symbolic values and narrative connections among growers, traders and tastemakers. In this context, quality is not anymore just a matter of taste, instead, it reveals underlying inequalities, capable of determining subjective experiences as well as influencing broader social and cultural dynamics.