The US Is the world's second biggest importer of coffee.
It is a very labor intensive crop.
It can take three to four years for a plant to bear the kind of fruit
we would roast and grind.
But the two people typically paid the least in the chain
are the farmer and the barista.
Learning about coffee is about learning where your dollar goes.
We follow one of those chains from Michigan to Yemen.
CONFLICT COFFEE
Hello. Hey, how are you?
What would you recommend today?
You want something with cream or no cream?
A little cream--
Go with the [...]
(Ibrahim) So, everything for here, right?
(customer) Yes, sir.
(Amel) Ibrahim Alhasbani is a coffee mogul in the making.
in 2017, he opened his first shop in Dearborn,
and is now branching out to two locations.
One across town and another in New York.
He's not selling your average American-style filtered coffee, though.
Alhasbani's coffee beans are from Yemen.
(Alhasbani) Enjoy, guys.
(customer) Thank you.
We're going to make one Sana'ani and one Jubani.
Okay.
For the Sana'ani, we're going to use a medium roast with cardamom.
For the Jubani, we use a light roast, medium roast, coffee husks,
ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom.
Got it.
So, it's like a special mix.
This is like the gateway drug into Yemen.
Yes. It's like a bridge.
It doesn't have sugar.
Yemeni coffee is famous because it has natural sweetness in it.
And I take my coffee with sugar every morning,
but I can drink this without sugar.
Good.
It's going to change your mind now.
(Amel) These coffee beans are sweeter
because they're grown in the highest mountainous regions of the country.
Why is coffee so important for Yemen?
(Alhasbani) For Yemen, first, is our culture.
We drink coffee every day.
It has also opened Yemen to the other countries.
When they started shipping to different countries,
people, they read more about Yemen,
they want to visit Yemen,
they want to see what's different about Yemen.
(Amel) How old were you when you had your first cup of coffee?
(Alhasbani) So my mom, she told me when I was a kid,
I had two things, coffee and a spicy.
She thinks, there's something wrong with this baby.
(Amel) Yemen, may have been the first to drink coffee nearly a thousand years ago
when it exported it out of a famous port called Mocha,
but colonialism, conflict,
and the rising popularity of coffee crops elsewhere,
overtook it.
Alhasbani left home in 2011,
but his brother still back in Haraz
running the family's coffee farm.
Hello?
Hello.
How are you?
All is good. Thank God.
Okay. And how's everything there?
Everything's great. The coffee beans are great.
Make sure you don't roast it except with the right amount of time
and at the right time.
Yes, for sure.
Let's go... let's go... let's go...
Let's go, Abadan. Let's go, Noureddeen.
Let's go.
Let's go, it's noon.
The sun is getting hot. Hold this.
Here. Hold this.
Watch out for my foot.
The red and tender ones.
The red.
This is one of the best types of coffee.
Look, they're red.
Come on, come on.
For people's livelihoods, it's the coffee bean tree.
If you notice, all of the valleys and empty areas here
are used to grow coffee beans.
All riches here are gone.
Everyone here grows coffee beans. There's nothing else left.
(Amel) For five years, a rebel militia based in the north, the Houthis,
has been fighting with a coalition backed by the Saudis for control.
The coalition blocked most imports from coming in,
and the fighting has made life in the region's poorest country hell.
More than 100,000 people have died so far.
From airstrikes, famine, and rampant disease.
And exporting anything amid all of this chaos
is sometimes impossible.
It's cheaper to attempt this only once a year,
and the only way to keep the beans fresh
is to roast and grind them in the US.
You must really believe in this yemeni coffee. Yes, first, I believe in our brand,
I believe, in our yemeni coffee beans, as one of the best companies in the world.
Also, I believe in myself.
I didn't listen to anyone. I just said
I spend all saving, I have 41k, a break it down. I guess I use it.
I use all my credit card. I use all the money I have.
So everybody will be your crazy
when people first hear the word Yemen, they think of a current War.
Bloodshed,
but to you, Yemen, signifies something else. It's not in my life.
It's my birth place.
I stopped watching news, actually, especially ones come to him. And it's just said,
I'm fired right here, and I can't do nothing.
It's just, I can't control my emotion. I can't control myself.
It's bothering me from inside.
Oh, my family. So there I have my sister said she was sick
and because it was no hospital in here, man. It is no doctors normal said
she was away in the way and because
they take her to the hospital and they said, they didn't do nothing for her.
So they send her back home and she get worse.
They take her back to the hospital. She didn't make it.
Do you ever feel guilty
that you're here and there? They're back in a war zone.
Sometimes I feel guilty because I'm not next to them. Family is very important.
Other side, when I found not guilty because
at least I'm here to support them to help them.
If all of us stuck there, you don't know what's going to happen.
What are your hopes for a better? You
this war has to end.
This is first second. We have to be all yemeni together.
What are you thinking about? I just wanna get emotional.
That's why I'm yeah.
It just said I was crazy about me.
When I remember those people as Nana, they fight. It's not just,
it's really bad.
Okay, if we're not, not gonna do nothing, nothing gonna change.