A History of Coffee is the story of how a tiny psychoactive seed changed the world and shapes our lives today.
Across six episodes, documentary maker James Harper and professional historian Jonathan Morris narrate how humans race coffee across oceans to keep up with demand for this addictive drink.
Coffee creates enormous fortunes for some, and misery for others. Sometimes the environment benefits, but more often it is plundered.
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.
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Follow Jonathan Morris @coffeehistoryjm and James Harper @filterstoriespodcast.
Read full transcripts at www.historyofcoffee.org.
Specialty coffee changes the story for the indigenous people of Guatemala. Coffee as a tool of oppression finally offers hope....and then something a bit more complicated.
This episode explores the tension between the values of the Mayan communities who grow coffee, and the values that drive the specialty coffee movement.
Many of the signals we typically look for in our coffees - super-specialty flavours, Fairtrade certification, “5th generation family farm” - might actually exclude coffee grown by indigenous Guatemalans.
This episode might change what kind of Guatemalan coffee you buy.
Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!
Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.
Read Jonathan’s book, Coffee: A Global History
Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories
Read James’ article on Dieseldorf, the famous German plantation owner, in Standart
Pick up a copy of Prof. Ted Fischer’s excellent book Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third Wave Taste Makers Create Value
Follow Juan Jose on LinkedIn to keep up with his PhD on coffee farming in Jacaltenango exploring how ecology, generational memory and ritual all shape how Jacalteco farmers tend the land.
Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here.How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out.Visiting World of Coffee San Diego? Pull a shot on the gorgeous Slayer Steam SingleWhat does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.
20 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT
Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway?
When you buy a bag of coffee labelled fifth-generation family farm, it feels like a good choice.
But in Guatemala, that label might actually be a signal for a more uncomfortable truth.
This episode explores how land has been understood, used, and eventually fought over in Guatemala for centuries between indigenous people, Europeans and those in-between.
It’s a story of what happened immediately after Guatemala won independence from Spain. This pivotal period of history gets less attention in the history books, but the suffering of the indigenous people of Guatemala gets arguably even worse.
Fair warning: it's a dark story, and it will make you think twice about what you're really choosing when you pick up a bag of coffee from Central America.
Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!
Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.
Read Jonathan’s book, Coffee: A Global History
Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories
Read James’ article on Dieseldorf, the famous German plantation owner, in Standart
Pick up a copy of Prof. Ted Fischer’s excellent book Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third Wave Taste Makers Create Value
Follow Juan Jose on LinkedIn to keep up with his PhD on coffee farming in Jacaltenango exploring how ecology, generational memory and ritual all shape how Jacalteco farmers tend the land.
Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here.How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out.Visiting World of Coffee San Diego? Pull a shot on the gorgeous Slayer Steam SingleWhat does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.
2 Mar 2026
Surrogates: Anything but the coffee
What happens when coffee disappears?
This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks.
When coffee is not around, people still need something warm, comforting, and familiar. And throughout history, people have reached for coffee surrogates: roasted plants and grains engineered to look like coffee…but do they actually taste like coffee?
In this episode, Jonathan and James time-travel by taste testing a truly alarming number of coffee substitutes.
Spoiler: you will hear a lot of spitting!
Which leads to the bigger question: can anything actually replace coffee—or will we always come crawling back?
Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!
Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.
Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’
Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories
Read James’ article on the history of decaf technology in Standart
See Colin Smith’s amazing coffee museum at Smith’s Coffee in Hemel Hempstead, UK
Get nerdy about the intersection of AI and the occult on Karin’s Subtack, Mercurial Minutes
Do your own surrogate taste test!
Postum
Atomo
Orzo
Fig
Dandelion root
Dateseed
Acorn
Chickpea
Chicory Root
Camp Coffee
Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here.How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out.What kind of racing car does the Gaggia Classic GT home espresso machine remind you of? Use discount code FS202610 to get 10% off. What does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.
Inside a recent episode
Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway?
Published 20 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] And it was different back then. The sense of private property wasn't there. Most land was communally owned. It would be allocated and reallocated from year to year. To gain prestige in these communities, it was generally the people who gave away the most, who were the most generous to the community. So they weren't necessarily the wealthiest, or they did really well, but they gave all of what they earned away. And that would create this prestige. Wow. What Ted's saying is we have collectively organized communities who work the land commonly together. They might change the partition of the land from year to year as to who looks at which bit. […]
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