Papua New Guinea (Asia)
I decided to write this month about P.N.G. because I recently obtained the flag that was draped over my grandfather’s coffin at his funeral. My grandfather served in New Guinea during WWII where I read that 216,000 combined people died from the U.S.A., Australia and Japan during one of the more major war fronts between Japan and the allies. This country recently gained it’s independence in 1975, but remains a commonwealth under Queen Elizabeth II. From the research there’s complexity to their modern history, with mining, civil war and other societal issues. They are an island country however known for their self sustainability. However they continue to struggle with human rights, something that has been a historical problem for their primitive society. Rugby in recent years, has become the detachment from many ways of fighting, bringing the peace that sports are know for as a distraction for political fighting. The word sport literally means to detach or distract in the original Latin.
Speaking of detaching, many people enjoy PNG coffee for that reason. It has that typical island feel, usually without the island price you would expect from something like a Jamaican Blue Mountain or Kona. Due to the great climates for coffee growing PNG produces some great high altitude, low caffeine coffee. Currently the one I carry which is grown in altitudes of 4-6000 meters above sea level. This allows for a smoother taste since the coffee plant produces less caffeine, which is a natural bug repellant for the plant. The more bitter the coffee, the more caffeine that may be in it. In addition to the darker the roast, the less caffeine will be in it since it’s being roasted out.
New Guinea received its name from Spanish explorers who found the people of the land to reflect the blacks of Guinea, Africa. Guinea from my research is similar to the word Moor, meaning black, regarding their skin complexation. While P.N.G. is one of the oldest cultures in the world with vast cultural diversity and languages (the most in the world), PNG is a developing country. Over the past 100 years there’s advancements in learning due to the Christian influence of teaching the people to read for example, and raising awareness to the human rights issues like rape culture (where 15%-25% of men admit to participating in some form of it). In addition head hunting, human sacrifice and cannibalism in many forms have been abolished in the past century. Ironically when I did research for this one, I found nothing about coffee culture. This was fascinating for me. Most of these blogs come from simply looking through a Wikipedia page, which serves it’s purpose due to the various contributions and my limited time. To see nothing about coffee was fascinating, but none the less a good learning experience.
