But First...Coffee | Jay Ducote | TEDxLSU

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm here to tell you a tale about to political science grad students one of those stories belongs to me and the other to a dear friend of mine Caroline it's a story about business with a heart it's about thinking globally but acting locally and more than it is about what we're doing it's about how and why we're doing it while some of you may know me because I eat and drink for a living in a not so distant past I earned a master's degree from LSU in political science and before that a bachelor's in economics with late-night studying and crunching numbers I developed a deep appreciation for coffee it's a natural energy booster and extremely popular across the globe it's actually the world's second most traded product behind petroleum Coffee is a particularly valuable agricultural resource for a lot of the developing world around the equator where coffee can be grown parts of Africa Southeast Asia and Central and South America are the largest growers and exporters of coffee and a lot of their economy depends on the global coffee market Coffee is as much a part of Louisiana as gumbo a large coffee roaster community coffee rust on the banks of the Mississippi just a few miles from where I stand right now kids grow up with coffee milk you know it's the little splash of coffee in their milk and you don't dare eat beignets without Cafe la so in Louisiana we don't grow coffee but we most certainly drink it and lotsa and I as for me I love coffee so much that I recently crafted my own single origin roast but before I tell you why I have my own coffee we first tell you a little bit about how I got there when I arrived at LSU for my first tailgate party my cousin handed me our grandfather's old barbecue utensils and said here freshmen you're in charge of the grill now it's been the trial by fire ever since the main thing I learned in grad school that I did not for the rest of my life want anything to do with politics I fell backwards into teaching high school math and coaching baseball then I got hired by the state of Louisiana to write grants for health information technology I was stuck at a computer from 8:00 to 5:00 bored out of my mind with only a downtown lunch break to cure that boredom so on a September day in 2009 after returning to my office from an eating excursion I stared blankly at my computer screen only being able to think about what I wanted to eat for lunch the next day and then the next so I thought I should start writing these ideas down you know a food journal of sorts so sitting there at my work computer I started writing about the meal I just consumed that food journal turn into a blog and then the blog turned into social media accounts and a radio show and TV appearances and before I knew it I had created my own culinary media company focused on promoting local culture through food and beverages in my opinion local is always better by the fall of 2011 I had quit my day job to pursue that passion full-time I wanted to expand the conversation about Louisiana cuisine and celebrate the culinary culture of communities I visited I had no idea where it would take me I just knew I wouldn't be bored I developed a product line launching a barbecue sauce in 2014 then a wine that was followed by my molasses mustard and then a barbecue rub I cooked pop-up dinners rehearsal dinners private dinners and cooking demos at festivals I hired a staff I grew my businesses I finished runner-up on season 11 of Food Network Star I got invited to cook at the James Beard House in New York City last summer I watched a pilot from my own show air on Travel Channel I'm currently working on opening up a taco shop in Baton Rouge so I definitely have not been bored but I'm always looking at what's next and the next thing was coffee back to my friend Caroline her story and how we reunited on a story about passion creation collaboration and most importantly caffeination caroline received her doctorate from LSU in political science and went on to become a professor at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania for several years now she's traveled to a remote community in the Dominican Republic called el marrón hito which means the little orange named after the tiny bright oranges that grow there an elder and hito growing and harvesting coffee is pretty much their only means of revenue Ellen Aaron he chose isolation means that the farmers there are beholden to middlemen who pay them as little as 5 to 8 cents per pound for the coffee that they grow the farmers there are some of the poorest in the world they live in dirt floor shacks and cook on three rock stoves in their houses they work from sunup till sundown but despite putting in all those hours they have very little material wealth to show for it what they do have are relationships with family and friends that any of us would be lucky to have and they have a passion for growing coffee which their families have been doing for generations historically very little of the coffee grown and the Dominican Republic ever even leaves the island only about three to five percent of Dominican coffee is exported out of the country and of that the vast majority goes to Europe so in America coffee from the Dominican Republic is an extremely rare commodity when Caroline and her team go visit el marrón hito each spring it's about a dozen of them faculty and students they work with the coffee growers on growing harvesting and processing techniques they want to ensure that they can improve the coffee quality so that they can connect the farmers with external markets that can pay more for the coffee that they grow Caroline and our team also focus on the environment in which the coffee is growing by helping develop a shade canopy shade-grown coffees which account for less than one cent of the coffees in the world not only tastes better but they also help preserve the natural environment of the coffee and then that helps ensure the health and safety of the coffee growers and coffee drinkers finally Caroline and her team from Lycoming College also work on quality of life projects like clean water and in the near future solar power this community literally survives off of the coffee train so Caroline saw this opportunity to help them climb in some way out of poverty in 2015 caroline is that was the first year that Caroline was able to purchase coffee beans from the farmers and bring them back to the United States she didn't bring back very much and the quality of that coffee was mediocre at best she worked with a coffee roaster and blended those beans with some other ones and they created a pretty decent drinkable product by the time the coffee harvest of 2016 rolled around Caroline felt confident that due to the farming practices that they were putting in place the quality of that coffee was going to be way better and she also imagined that they would have way too much for her college in Pennsylvania to consume by themselves but they hadn't yet connected any dots with any external markets to sell the coffee - so she was afraid that they just weren't going to be able to buy all the coffee from the farmers and that's where I stepped in this opportunity little fuse in my entrepreneurial spirit the solution was just staring me in the face add a coffee to my line of food and beverage products the game plan was simple Caroline would continue to work with the farmers and with the students at lycoming they would she would work with an importer that oversaw the shipping of all the beans from the Dominican Republic to the United States her college would use what they needed and I would buy the rest I'd have my beans ship to Baton Rouge's cafecito coffee company who I'd work with to grouse those beans for me and that was an important step in the process to bring it all full circle everything I do in the food and beverage world is focused on eating and drinking locally I work with local beers farms breweries distilleries you name it in order for me to do this project I wanted it to have a local tie even though the raw coffee beans were coming from the Dominican Republic so roasting them here is exactly what we did in the fall of 2016 I placed an order for 440 pounds of green dominican coffee beans the farmers in el marrón hito received over $2 a pound instead of the five to eight cents per pound that they were receiving before thus greatly improving their quality of living in the process we knew we needed to do a test roast to see if we could market this coffee as a single origin coffee meaning that it all came from that one community or if we needed to blend it so we made that brew and we all perked up when we tasted it for the first time the coffee had this nose of nutmeg and other spices we got flavors of milk chocolate and nutmeg on our tongues the coffee was fruity and bright with an earthiness reminiscent of dominican coffee I could barely obtain my contain my excitement jd's single origin coffee became a reality throughout this endeavor I've had the pleasure of working with one of my most treasured friends without whom I wouldn't be the same person that I am today I've enjoyed working with a farm in a country where I visited and whose culture I hold dear I've been able to team up with a Baton Rouge company that works with the craftsmanship that I respect and helping contribute to our local economy and cafecito Coffee Roasters and I are also donating $1 for every unit of coffee sold back to Lycoming College to help fund their students that are traveling to the Dominican Republic to work on those quality of life of quality of life initiatives it's really a pleasure for me to be able to help college students that are studying political science developing world economics and sustainable agriculture and to bring the whole thing full circle in May I'm going to make a trip to LA to el marrón hito in the Dominican Republic I'm going to go with Caroline and her team and I'm going to meet the farmers work in the fields and cook for everybody there so as I drink this damn good cup of coffee that's unique delicious and has my name on it I'm reminded that sometimes all it takes is a cup of coffee to change the world you just have to pay attention to where you're getting it from after all everything global is local somewhere [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 12,878

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Global Issues, Agriculture, Business, Environment, Ethics, Food, Foreign policy, Globalization, Impact, International Affairs, Local issues, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Science, Society, Sustainability

Id: WaE2PD-aUC4

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2017