Do you know where your coffee came from? If you’re at Zingerman’s Coffee Company, probably yes.

More and more, roasters and coffee shops emphasize how and where they source their beans. But how did coffee get to those places—Costa Rica, Brazil, and Ethiopia—in the first place? And what happened when it got there?

Join us for a conversation with Casey Lurtz, author of the recent book, ‘From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico’. We’ll talk about how coffee spread outward from Eastern Africa and how its introduction reshaped local societies and economies. Looking at the multiplicity of ways in which coffee has been grown, we’ll think beyond roasting and brewing to understand how the histories of where coffee is cultivated flavor our morning cup.

This talk will be paired with sample tastings of three distinctive coffees brewed at Zingerman’s Coffee Company.

CASEY LURTZ is Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico (Stanford University Press, 2019). She is a residential fellow at the University of Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study for the 2019-20 academic year.

This is event is co-sponsored by the U-M Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, U-M African Studies Center, and Zingerman’s Coffee Company.