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On Monday, October 2, the weekly Public House “Culinary Culture Lecture Series” featured Tom Wheat, director, farmer, importer, and roaster for Nueva Mission, Inc. in a talk entitled Thinking Locally in a Supranational Industry: Venezuela Biointesive Coffee Farm Communities and the American Consumer. Nueva Mission is a non-for-profit organization which links the people of the Caripe region in Venezuela with the community of Lawrence, KS, by growing, producing, importing, and roasting Venezuela coffee for the Lawrence market while using organic, sustainable, and community-focused methods. Wheat’s talk focused on the sharp distinctions between “conventional” farming techniques and “sustainable” farming techniques, and the impact each technique has on rural coffee-growing communities.

The talk also featured the history of Nueva Mission, Inc., whose coffee is regularly offered in the Signs of Life cafe. Three varieties of coffee are offered to Signs of Life customers–Caripe, Curasau, and Black Mountain. Nueva Mission products offer Lawrencians a connection to real, functioning, agrarian communities in Venezuela committed to producing gourmet-level products via sustainable methods such as vermiculture, heirloom coffee plant cultivation, and shade-grown agriculture.

For those looking for more resources on the history of coffee and the emerging specialty coffee industry in America, check out Mark Pendegrast’s Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. Also, Signs of Life has compiled an entire section of books dedicated to the Culinary Culture Lecture Series, so come in to the store for a great selection of books discussing food, sustainable agriculture, local economies, agrarianism, country skills, and more!