Spilling the Beans

Ask children where coffee comes from and they’ll likely point to the ubiquitous green umbrellas of a nearby Starbucks. And now that the company has introduced its trenta cup (coffee’s version of a 7-Eleven big gulp), the involved journey of beans to cup has become that much more obscured. Photographer Daniel Lorenzetti and his wife, author Linda Rice Lorenzetti, encountered a coffee plantation while visiting Indonesia and were intrigued by its visually stunning landscape and labor-intensive agrarian culture. So they traveled to eight coffee-growing regions — from Kenya to Costa Rica — creating photographic and narrative portraits of the people who handpick the beans that wind up in our morning java. The Birth of Coffee was published in 2002, and an exhibit of the Lorenzettis’ images and text has traveled the world. This Thursday, thanks to sponsorship by Gavina Gourmet Coffee, “The Birth of Coffee” will open at Miami Dade College’s Centre Gallery. See 40 of the silver gelatin prints, toned sepia by actual coffee, as well as the accompanying text. The show wraps on April 9.
Tuesdays-Fridays, noon. Starts: Feb. 3. Continues through April 9, 2011