I always kick off these reheats by saying, hey, if you have an episode you want us to reheat,

tell us, well, this is proof that we are actually reading all your emails and taking your opinions

into account, because we are about to drop a two-part series that many of you have requested.

It's the incredible story of Mokhtar Al-Kanshali. He was working as a doorman in San Francisco when he saw a

statue that literally changed his life. It inspired him to start a company that sells great coffee

and helps Yemeni farmers. But in the process of launching this company, Moktar got caught in the

crossfire of a civil war. As I said, this is a two-parter. We're dropping to part one today, part two for next Friday's reheat.

So look, as I said, we take requests.

Drop me a line to hello at sporkful.com.

Let me know what episode you'd like us to reheat.

Thanks so much and enjoy part one of our story.

I'll start with our fears.

The biggest fear is that we sell the copies at a lower price than what farmers can sell in Yemen.

And what's a bigger fear than that is people have given us much of their hope.

And for them to give a hope in a country like Yemen that's going through so much difficulty,

it's a difficult

burden to carry. This is Mokhtar Al-Khanshali. He runs a non-profit that works with Yemeni coffee

farmers. He recorded this voice memo for us about a month ago, the night before Yemen's first

ever national coffee auction. He created this auction to let the country's top farmers sell directly

to buyers, cutting out the middlemen so that farmers keep more of the profits. Mokhtar's been planning

this for two years in the midst of Yemen's civil war. His hope for the auction? We sell these

coffees at ridiculous prices. Prices that farmers in Yemen never thought they could reach.

...