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.