It Chose Me

By RH Drexel

Caffeine is the most commonly-used stimulant on the planet. It gets our species out of bed in the morning and into long days of labor or study with a sense of confidence. The most popular way to consume caffeine is by drinking a cup of coffee.

Beyond the cup, most often a mug, are other material forms that coffee involves - the bean, the hissing espresso machine, the eventually piping hot liquid - as well as immaterial forms that grant coffee much of its allure: coffee culture, or to include the institutions, café culture.

Every society has its own approach to the culture of coffee, because social and symbolic meanings arise whenever coffee is present. The drink is often shared ritualistically, consumed through ambitious plans and political manifestos, as much as through the natural silence of old, familiar friendships.

Through its cultural consumption, the identity of coffee transmutes from the beverage itself into our gatherings, which become characterized by coffee’s intensity and quality. As is the case with human beings, the identity of coffee surpasses its physical form to also embody a myriad of seemingly intangible phenomena - including experiences, relationships, memories, values and beliefs.

“To some extent, identity is immutable,” says Gabriel Boscana, the former barista-turned-coffee-buyer, roaster, and founder of Maquina Coffee Roasters. “But on the outer edges, there are multiple opportunities to reshape it, refine it, fine-tune it. That requires openness.”

The Puerto Rican-born Boscana, who is 43, first identified with coffee as a college student. While he was studying Sociology and Gender Studies, he had already decided he didn’t want to be a researcher or statistician or follow a graduate school path. “I got a job as a barista at Gimme! Coffee and it was there I learned how coffee was sourced and became fascinated by it,” Boscana says. “I found immediate connection in knowing that well over 95% of coffee is grown by an extended family of people of color all over the world.

“It brought me back to my desire to understand communities, systems of power, oppression, and human capital. It created a deep-seated respect and love for the land and the people who are closely connected to it.”

Even more personally, Boscana found crossovers between his lifelong study and experience of one’s own identity and the transformative, meditative, process of coffee roasting. “I find it compelling and a privilege to be able to go inward and be introspective at such an early age in my life, and to really wrestle with how I wanted to be perceived in the world versus how I was perceived,” says Boscana. “Our identity is a combination of how we come into the world, and how the world shapes us as we are.”

Boscana describes transitioning as “a deeply emotional process” and values his professional craft from a similar framework. “I take one thing, and with some coaxing and thoughtfulness, I transform it into something else,” he says, “[something else] that is a truer form of consumption as we cannot drink green coffee.”

The meaningfulness Boscana found in the relationship between coffee and identity is part of what led him to found Maquina in his garage in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 2016. Enchanted by the trade but sensitive to its exploitative nature, he conceived of a business model that would thrive while supporting and advancing the needs of coffee growers. “It is a commodity crop. This leaves a lot of room for exploitation,” he says. “There is a great disconnect between the product and the system of markets and trade.”

“Coffee is mostly produced by people of color in disadvantaged positions and often come from historically oppressed groups of people who are expected to navigate a market system that they largely do not understand and most definitely have zero control over.”

“There are very few bodies of advocacy for producers/farmers which allows for even more room for exploitation,” he says. A grower grows and processes their coffee. Several months will pass, post-processing, before that producer receives any sensory or qualitative feedback on a product for which they have already been paid a specific price. The grower has no leverage if their coffee ends up being extraordinary. They have no mechanism in place to assure a fair price is paid, reflecting quality considerations. “Almost all the risk is taken on by the producer,” says Boscana. “The long timeline of a commodity crop leaves virtually no safety net for the producer.”

According to the annually published Coffee Barometer Report, “of the total value of coffee ($456 billion USD in 2020), only 10% stays in the countries of origin. In total, large companies spend approximately $350 million dollars a year on sustainability. By paying prices that are too low, the coffee industry is at least partly responsible for human rights issues such as poverty, child labor, and poor working conditions, as well as environmental damage. In sustainability discussions, talking about a ‘decent price’ is taboo. The [coffee] industry largely refuses to commit to decent prices for farmers.”

These complex challenges are what drew Boscana into this work. “I love coffee because it allowed me to be curious and build a skillset that is transferable into many areas of my life. It chose me.”

Rosalba Cifuentes, of Bella Vista in Chiapas, Mexico, a grower who works with Maquina, says “the biggest challenge is overcoming the negative stereotypes about Chiapas coffee and our general area. We have a terrible but false reputation. Our people are incredible, and our coffee is delicious.”

When asked what she wishes people knew about her as a grower, she says, “I would like people to know that I came from many, many obstacles and challenges since I was a little kid. That even though life was rough at the start, I have overcome the challenges because I believed in myself and believed I could do anything and would be able to overcome anything that came my way.”

She adds that “that coffee forms culture, a lifestyle, and it can help us form a collective consciousness. It's truly a pleasure to be in the business of coffee. I enjoy it. I enjoy having the responsibility but more than that, I love being able to offer producers the support they need to sell their coffees. I like being in the fight with them for justice and sustainable living. I cannot see myself not being in coffee.” For Cifuentes, a thread of identity runs through it: “I don't like boasting about my own story,” she adds, “but rather learn from how other people see me.”

Utilizing Maquina, Boscana has made it his mission to procure green coffee beans from growers in Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Rwanda and Burundi in the most humane, connected and sustainable manner possible. He says the growers with whom he works are “three-dimensional beings with hopes and dreams and opinions on all aspects of life. They are not just people of color in funny hats and clothes.”

“They are just like us and have experiences that I think we would benefit from understanding as human beings. We romanticize the beauty of coffee in a way that ignores the reality of the hardships that most producers face in order to produce coffee.”

Boscana wants his customers to be aware of the supply chain and how this affects the grower. “It will only make us better humans to be aware of this when we make our purchase of coffee, without sacrificing the pleasure of drinking a well-sourced and well-roasted cup of coffee.”

Alfonso Nolasco, a 53-year-old grower from Honduras, has been growing coffee since he was 18 years old and his father gave him a field in which he planted his first 1000 plants of Typica and Pacas variety coffee plants. Today, he, his wife and five children farm a larger plot of land.

“Coffee is more than a crop,” he says. “It is the culture carried in the blood of our region. There is a great effort that is made annually to grow and produce great coffee. Our pride and motivation are to be producers of high-quality coffee. Coffee is a drink that has literally changed history. Sharing this delicious drink has even caused very important revolutions and social changes. The drink is delicious, pleasant, gives tranquility, sobriety and increases the mood. Unlike other drinks, it is affordable and can still be consumed by the whole family and friends.”

Boscana has befriended the growers with whom he has worked, cultivating deep friendships and connections with them and their families. Their struggles have become his own, as have their successes.

“My compassion for people grew due to the struggles and scary moments of accepting my transness,” Boscana says. “Being trans has allowed me to see the world in a broader brushstroke. The acceptance of all types of ’otherness’ in people came directly from my experience as a trans person,” he says. “I don’t see the world from a narrow lens of just LGBTQ+ identity - in fact it is quite the opposite. I was stealth for a very, very long time. No one knew about my past female identity. They merely knew me as Gabe - who I have always been, by the way.”

“Being stealth condensed the world around me to focus on safety rather than connection to other people. We seek connection at Maquina, we seek openness and honesty as a business, and we also seek beautiful relationships with people across all business endeavors and interactions.”

“I have experienced great compassion from people, and interest in supporting the business because of who I am and what we want to do with this ’machine for good,’” he shares.

Millie, Boscana’s eight-year-old daughter, often appears with him on brief tutorials he posts on Instagram about a brewing technique or new coffee. Self-assured, energetic and inquisitive, she appears to embrace her father’s interest in coffee, despite her young years. “She loves to open up a big bin of green coffee and stick her hands in it,” says Boscana, “She also genuinely loves the smell of coffee and often asks me to leave her a bit of my cup to drink after it’s cooled down for a while.”

“It’s allowed me to connect with her outside of the parent role, so she is able to see me as a full human, not just her dad. This has helped our relationship immensely. The same lessons I have learned being in coffee, I am passing down to her.”