Black Gold - Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee!

Coffee is today the most popular beverage in the world and has become an industry worth over $80 billion. But while we continue to pay top dollar for our designer lattes and cappuccini, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many face grinding poverty, relying on foreign aid from the very countries which refuse to pay fair prices for their products.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price. Against the backdrop of Tadesse's journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world's coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.

As energising as a double espresso, BLACK GOLD will forces us to question the origins of our humble morning latte.