James Hoffmann's world atlas of coffee has a lot of sections that are like, "this was a rough time due to rampant genocide, civil war, and also "coffee wilt disease." Or, the coffee industry really went downhill after they gained independence from brutal belgian colonial rule.
This is not a knock on Hoffmann who is clear and informed about the ills of colonialism, and has more than average self-awareness about the limitations of woke consumerism1, of which specialty coffee is one of the absolute peak examples. It just highlights an inherent darkly absurd element to his project.
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Although he is also a major poster child for same as a sort of coffee public intellectual and as someone who's actively running a business in that industry, and he is clearly a believer in the positive potential of market forces in a way that makes my eyebrow twitch, y'know?