2013

In 2013, the Culture of Coffee transmedia project developed by Metasebia Yoseph was produced with the intention of exploring and preserving the history and culture the world’s most beloved drink. However, nearly a decade later, millions coffee lovers still lack a connection to the origins of coffee and the rich traditions that surround it, while millions of coffee farmers remain unable to extract economic value from their vital agricultural creations.

Coffee is our muse, our hero—but what’s a hero without an origin story"?

Blockchain and NFTs are proving to be amazing tools in the preservation and storage of cultural information and metadata. Using these technologies, we have the opportunity to make coffee’s origin story more innovative and widely accessible, with traceable provenance baked in.

:: MORE THAN A BOOK ::

As a transmedia project, Culture of Coffee, continues to explore the power of medium in transmitting cultural stories and uniting communities. This crowdfund will go towards the production of special 10-year Anniversary digital and hardback editions of the book which includes updated research and scannable pages that unlock multi-sensory and augmented content.

In addition to these phygital components, this genesis NFT-Crowdfund launch offers our backers NFT / token-enabled access to the project’s virtual gallery, archive of 3D cultural coffee artifacts, and, $COFFEE tokens --which establishes pre-mine access to the project’s community currency and governance abilities in the future $COFFEE HOUSE DAO.

:: PRESERVING THE PAST TO TRANSFORM THE FUTURE OF $COFFEE ::

This public launch serves as the genesis for the Culture of Coffee project’s Web3 relaunch, as noted in Season 1 of our project Roadmap .

Throughout these seasonal milestones $COFFEE tokens will  be used to represent your evolving membership and stake in our project's community, enabling access to token-gated private channels in the COFFEE HOUSE discord and Culture of Coffee website, as well as, voting abilities that shape the project and future DAO governance. Tokens can also represent a potential economic stake in the project's future success as future revenue is routed back to the token.

Once this dynamic transmedia artifact is launched and the last anniversary-edition book has been distributed, our goal is to build on the tokenomics of $COFFEE to create real-world benefits for its holders through virtual + IRL activations, DAO governance, investment, and community-led proposals.

:: DISRUPTING WEB 2 COFFEE ::

Guided by the project’s inherent cultural and social value, this united $COFFEE community will seek out opportunities that leverage our collective influence to disrupt traditional web2 paradigms in coffee through experimental partnerships and use-cases.

Some use-cases and initiatives have already been explored in collaboration with community members during Open Lab sessions and other virtual gatherings via Culture of Coffee’s limited weekly Twitter Spaces series: #COFFEESOCIAL, which sought to unpack this multi-disciplinary project and its capacity for social innovation.

Sample Projects for future $COFFEE HOUSE DAO

• Crypto-enabled Cafè

• Global Network of Cafès that transact in / offer perks to $COFFEE holders

• Token/ NFT-enabled curated coffee subscriptions that financially empower farmers.

• Gamified Coffee Farm in the Metaverse that connects $COFFEE holders and connoisseurs with linked specialty farm and farmers, in real time.

:: ACTIVATING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF $COFFEE LOVERS ::

We seek to build a future where $COFFEE holders can transact with cafès and other related coffee businesses, indie brands, products, and services with the aim of seamlessly aligning our core values and mission to strengthen global coffee culture by uplifting narratives and demonstrating new models in coffee sourcing and production.

Are you a coffee enthusiast interested in collecting and preserving the origins of coffee culture, while actively shaping its future?

Do you want to scale an exciting community-led transmedia project that has the potential to disrupt traditional web2 coffee paradigms ?

Let’s build a world as rich as the coffee in our cups!

crowdfund://0xA1DcA5EA16acFCE67dB5582edeB39354B69869cD?features=overview,editions,podium,backers

CONNECT WITH US

Twitter: @cultureofcoffee

Discord: COFFEE HOUSE

Mirror: Culture of Coffee

Instagram: @cultureofcoffee

Website: cultureofcoffee.com

TEAM

Metasebia Yoseph is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and product manager with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of art and technology. She has produced a number of experimental cultural projects, writings, exhibitions, and community-based events.

Brook Getachew is a visual artist, designer, writer, founder as well as brand and community builder. Brook's artistic work is a meditative question on existence as he uses his experience as a mirror for others to pause and experience theirs. For more than 5 years, Brook has been helping startups, founders, artists, and individuals build a top of mind brand by finding values, and causes their communities resonate with.

Coffee is our muse, our hero—but what’s a hero without an origin story?

We owe so much of our social innovations and modern advances to coffee. It drives and inspires us; makes us dig deep within ourselves to be more, do more, create more. Now, with new collective values, we leverage it to be, do, and create better. Coffee is our muse, our hero—but what’s a hero without an origin story?

Nearly ten years ago, I set out to write a book about the Ethiopian coffee ceremony and the origins of our global coffee culture. I remember being rejected at every turn by publishing industry gatekeepers. As an Ethiopian-American, the concept of the project was deeply personal. Yet as a cultural curator, I knew that books and exhibitions on Ethiopia and the continent at-large were rarely produced by authors and artists who look like me, those who have a direct connection to the culture being represented. A decade later, this industry bias remains, propagating the exoticism of the white gaze. The problem wasn’t specific to the arts world or publishing though. I was also ignored by the coffee industry. (At the time, Ethiopia was still being fiercely contested as the birthplace of coffee and Starbucks was attempting to trademark Ethiopian geographic indicators like Sidamo and Harar to brand their specialty reserves). Needless to say, there was an obvious gap in the market and an urgent need to redress it. But a Black woman, let alone an American-born child of Ethiopian immigrants intent on righting and writing about historical inaccuracies were not exactly “on trend”.

Undeterred by the lack of interest, I went independent. I forged ahead and crowdfunded, appealing to my community to help me document our culture. My aim was to publish an indie coffee table book and produce a transmedia blog that featured compelling content on traditional Ethiopian and modern coffee rituals. I wanted to explore the legacy of our past and the influence Ethiopia has had on present-day coffee culture.

I had three primary goals in mind:

• To recognize Ethiopia as the birthplace of coffee.

• To familiarize the world with the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

• To facilitate cross-cultural exchange by connecting with an online network of coffee lovers through storytelling and social media engagement.

In a year’s time, I was grateful to achieve these goals and a few more. I hosted, live coffee tastings, social events, and a book launch in Washington, D.C., partnering with local artists and up-and coming Ethiopian coffee brands.

That was 2013, the year I birthed A Culture of Coffee. A lot has changed for me since then, but unfortunately, a lot about publishing and the arts scene remains the same. Here’s why I’m so excited to re-engage this work now, as the book approaches its tenth anniversary:

Web3 is revolutionizing everything. It’s the antithesis of the Web2 business models that disproportionately benefited big publishing and coffee conglomerates. Web3 is all about community, a community is fueled by coffee☕️.  During the 17th century when coffee intersected with the proliferation of books and cafes it became the ultimate change agent.  Today, as it spurs the rapid growth of Web3, A Culture of Coffee stands at the brink of a second enlightenment.

Blockchain and NFTs have proven to be amazing technologies in the preservation and storage of essential cultural information and metadata. In this time of over stimulation, fake news, and false memories, it is essential that we document culture and establish historical linkages on-chain.

Using these new tools, we can transmit the updated book, digitize my research, and archive cultural artifacts to the “immutable record”. The project presents an opportunity to make coffee’s origin story accessible, with traceable provenance baked in. Additionally, and, perhaps, more importantly A Culture of Coffee offers a new model for cultural management and the collective transfer of historical knowledge with the hopes of making intangible elements of African heritage more tangible.

A Culture of Coffee offers a new model for cultural management and the collective transfer of historical knowledge …making intangible elements of African heritage more tangible.

The special anniversary edition of A Culture of Coffee will include an interactive book, token-enabled access to the virtual transmedia exhibit, archive of 3D artifacts, and NFT gallery, as well as, $COFFEE tokens for supporters of the crowdfund. The Web3 rise of micro and creator economies means that my vision for the project as an artful, dynamic, and community-owned crypto-artifact can be manifested to scale. All of this, while compensating the collaborators and coffee enthusiasts invested in collecting and preserving coffee culture, while actively shaping its future.

This time around I’ll be collaborating with Web3 aligned indie coffee brands, cafes, and companies, who work in real life (IRL) to keep our modern coffee culture strong by nurturing social dialogue and advocating for equitable coffee production.

The special anniversary edition of A Culture of Coffee will include an interactive book, token-enabled access to the virtual transmedia exhibit, archive of 3D artifacts, and NFT gallery, as well as, $COFFEE tokens for supporters of the crowdfund.

As we prepare our crowdfund campaign to bring this future to life, we’ve also launched a Limited Twitter Spaces series called #CoffeeSocial to unpack all things at the intersection of $COFFEE, culture, and crypto. Join us in our Discord for related discussions and help shape the project that’s documenting our collective heritage on-chain.

Project Collaborators:

Metasebia Yoseph is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and product manager with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of art and technology. She has produced a number of experimental cultural projects, writings, exhibitions, and community-based events.

Brook Getachew is a visual artist, designer, writer, founder as well as brand and community builder. Brook's artistic work is a meditative question on existence as he uses his experience as a mirror for others to pause and experience theirs. For more than 5 years, Brook has been helping startups, founders, artists, and individuals build a top of mind brand by finding values, and causes their communities resonate with.

If you would like to get involved, support, or contact A CULTURE OF COFFEE click here.