The pursuit of beauty, through coffee

At the latest install­ment of a con­ver­sa­tion series called “The World in Your Cup,” Andrea Illy, the third-generation pres­i­dent and CEO of Italian coffee com­pany illy­caffè, pre­sented the audi­ence with a ques­tion that reflected orga­nizer Erika Koss’s remarks con­necting poetry, beauty, and coffee: “What is the link between a poem and coffee? What is the link between beauty and coffee, for that matter?”

“Coffee is the offi­cial bev­erage of cul­ture,” – Andrea Illy

Per­haps it wouldn’t seem like there is a con­nec­tion between artistic expres­sion and our daily cup of joe, but both Koss, assis­tant dean in the Col­lege of Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties, and Illy argued otherwise.

“Coffee is the offi­cial bev­erage of cul­ture,” Illy said. “If it’s really good coffee, it can trigger an inspi­ra­tion, and if you’re inspired you become very cre­ative. Coffee is the offi­cial bev­erage of Italy, of the Sci­en­tific Rev­o­lu­tion, of cul­ture. It is the bev­erage of the modern age.”

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