Join Sign Salad’s Emily and Isobel as they get beneath the surface of cultural phenomena, trends and brands. Covering a new topic in each episode, we’ll be revealing meanings and connections hidden in plain sight. This week, Isobel and Emily are joined by their colleague at Sign Salad and fellow caffeine-enthusiast, Katrina Russell, to discuss one of the world’s most popular beverages: coffee.

Coffee makes a powerful subject of cultural analysis – as a commodity with its own futures markets; as a specialist item produced with ever-evolving scientific and agricultural processes (we’re looking at you, thermoshock fermentation); and as a cultural artefact with an entangled history encompassing imperialism, colonialism, and global trade.

For the sake of brevity, we focus specifically on specialty coffee in this episode, what it can teach us about emergent and emerging culture, and why it’s a useful subject for any brand, regardless of category, to look towards for inspiration.

Listen to the podcast here.

Well Examined World: Specialty Coffee: A Sign Salad Podcast