In Marcy Norton’s piece entitled “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics,” Norton posits that contrary to scholarly opinion, chocolate and coffee’s emergence as a popular commodity came not from the thought that they could “insert
it into existing flavor complexes and discursive categories” (Norton 660), which consequentially would have masked any “indigenous” flavors attributed to Mesoamerican terroir, but that the flavor complexes were unwittingly accepted by the Europeans’ palettes. The mechanism created to support Norton’s rebuttal of the popular belief is that in turn, and as a result of the somaticization of cacao and coffee, the commodity’s migratory power led to the “cross-cultural transmissions of taste” that transcended themselves into helping strengthen the global spice market. Norton doesn’t forget to mention that they did, however, develop in composition and style, but due to what’s referred to as the “technological and economic challenges posed by long-distance trade rather than a radical rupture in the aesthetic preferences of chocolate consumers.” (660)

The main questions that these questions pose for the latter parts of the article concern ideas revolving around how and what processes are responsible for how humans in a world with a global market learn to assimilate to foreign things. Norton briefly suggests that the sensibilities of people change when the goods carry the idea of “biological and economic essentialism,” but also toward what’s described as a sort of cultural functionalism. The question that might underline these two positions is that of what relation the biological and economic qualities of a commodity have with its cultural functionalism, and how the definition of “luxury” wavers in meaning and significance in this given circumstance.

The intention of this article is to bring into conversation two opposing viewpoints regarding “il caffe sospeso”, known in the United States as, “the suspended coffee”, which is the practice of buying a cup of coffee in advance for someone less fortunate than oneself. There are varying accounts of the origin of this practice, the most popular being that it originated in Naples; groups of friends would lose track of how many cups of coffee were consumed, and would often pay for extras, telling the barista to give the free cup to a future, less fortunate customer—an act which “emphasized his or her refinement” (Buscemi). In Buscemi’s article, How ‘il caffé sospeso’ became ‘suspended coffee’: The neo-liberal re-‘invention of tradition’ from Bourdieu to Bourdieu, he contends that to engage in the “suspended coffee” movement acts more as a tool for improving one’s social position than as an act of true philanthropy. To exemplify this, Buscemi draws on the notion that people are more highly regarded when “they do not need to care about reality and everyday “vulgar” practices. This can be seen in the fact that those people buying the coffee do not have any contact with the people they are buying the coffee for. Additionally, Buscemi points out that there are many better ways to assist those in need of sustenance. On the other end of the spectrum is the Suspended Coffees movement—viewing the video posted below is very interesting when considering Buscemi’s argument. The viewer may notice that the first five minutes of the video focus primarily on the founder of the company, and how the company has changed his life. This is merely scratching the surface of Buscemi’s work—I’d highly recommend reading the article in its entirety. It is worth considering in this context what is signified by purchasing coffee with labels like Single-Origin, Fair Trade, Direct Trade, or Organic.