Talking Coffee and the Global Water Supply with Mariposa’s Amyie Kao

The Mariposa Coffee mobile bar

As consumers grow increasingly aware of coffee’s inherently global footprint, the local-ness of today’s micro roasters and indie cafes is a paradoxical concept — and it is often the smaller ones thinking the biggest.

Amyie Kao and her husband Daniel founded Mariposa Coffee, a micro roastery and coffee cart in Norman, Okla., 2009, and have since been growing the business to include 20-plus wholesale and grocery accounts throughout the state. Despite this decidedly local focus, they have never softened their approach to global issues. In partnership with OKC’s Water4, the company last year funded the construction of a sustainable well in a Coffee of Excellence region in Rwanda, benefitting some 600 villagers.

Kao recently applied some of her combined knowledge of coffee and global water issues for a TEDx conference in Norman. TEDx events are independently operated, but patterned after TED conference events (see our related coverage of the TED 2014 coffee service here). Here is Kao’s talk in full:

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