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Coffee — The Daily Global ConnectionLesson 1 of 17

Coffee, and Why a Cup Is a Classroom

Goal: After this lesson you can name the four lenses this episode uses and explain how to move through the course. Subject: Episode introduction | Run time: about 3 minutes

Welcome

Good morning. This is Anthony McDonald, and this is Better Vice Club. If you just heard the full episode audio, welcome back. If you are starting here, welcome in. Either way, the short lessons ahead take the episode apart one idea at a time, because one idea at a time is how ideas stick.

Why this matters

Here is the claim this whole episode rests on. The cup next to you connects you to about 25 million farming families across roughly 70 countries, and to a global industry worth about 245 billion dollars (International Coffee Organization, 2023). One ordinary morning habit, that much world folded inside it.

The idea

We read that cup through four lenses, and each short lesson picks one. Geography asks where coffee grows, why it grows there, and what a warming planet does to your cup. Social studies asks how coffee changed the way people gather, argue, and govern, and who paid the price for it. Economics asks who gets the money on the trip from the farm to your hand. English language arts asks what words, stories, and pictures coffee carries. Each lesson is short on purpose. One idea, a few minutes, then a quick question so you can feel it land.

Remember this

Hold onto the four lenses: geography, social studies, economics, and language. Every lesson in this episode is one of those four looking at the same cup. When you can switch between them on your own, you are reading the world, not just drinking coffee.

Quick check

Quick check. Name the four lenses we use to read a cup of coffee. Geography, social studies, economics, and English language arts. You can take them in order, or jump to the one that grabs you. The lessons are built to stand alone.

Key Takeaways

  • Better Vice Club reads one everyday commodity through four lenses: geography, social studies, economics, and English language arts.
  • Coffee links you to about 25 million farming families across roughly 70 countries and a global industry worth about 245 billion dollars (International Coffee Organization, 2023).
  • Lessons are short and single-idea by design, each ending in a quick recall check.
  • You can go in order or jump to the lens that interests you; the lessons stand alone.

Sources

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