Abstract

There is a dearth of studies concerning the socio-economic and cultural significance of coffee. Focussing on the different historical and global aspects that affect the cultural meaning of coffee for producers and consumers within the international coffee market this study examines the different ways in which coffee producers in Guatemala and consumers in North America have come to experience coffee, as well as their respective function in such an intertwined market and culture. The cultural meaning of coffee is relative to the society in which it is found. In Guatemala, a coffee producing society, the meaning of coffee is associated with the realities of production, and not with any imagined world of consumption which may be produced through advertising, as is the case in the North American Western context. Additionally, this difference in the cultural meaning of coffee within producing and consuming societies creates a disconnection that seems ever more difficult to overcome, due to the uneven cultural flows that affect production and consumption under the auspices of globalization.