How coffee got quicker Moments of Vision 2 Jessica Oreck
In a Moment of Vision…
It’s 1849.
William H. Bovee leaves his job
at a coffee producer in New York City
to seek his fortune
in gold-fevered California.
But leaving behind the luxuries
of the city,
Bovee leaves behind a more expedient
cup of joe.
Out west, folks are still buying
their coffee beans green,
roasting the beans at home,
then grinding them with a hand crank,
all before actually brewing them.
Bovee builds California’s
first coffee mill,
packaging and selling pre-roasted beans.
And in a moment of vision,
he takes the process one step farther
making his mill the world’s first to grind
the already roasted beans
on a large scale,
then pack them conveniently
into small, consumer-friendly tins.
Only a few years later, however,
Bovee tires of the coffee business
and sells his shares of the company
to a young employee: James Folger.
Folger changes the name and grows
the company to a nationwide brand,
jumpstarting a race to find the quickest,
easiest way to that morning caffeine fix.
For the 64% of Americans that drink
coffee daily,
an expedient cup
is practically essential.