How To Export Coffee In A War (Pt 2) (Reheat)

The Sporkful

SiriusXM Podcasts

Arts

4.6 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As civil war erupted in Yemen, Mokhtar Alkhanshali found himself imprisoned, with $5,000 stuffed in his underwear and his coffee samples confiscated. To get those samples to the biggest specialty coffee expo in North America, he’d have to survive more than one near-death experience. Would his coffee be worth the risk?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Dan here with another sportful reheat for you, and this one is part two of a two-part story that we started last week and last Friday's reheat. And this was an episode that many of you requested for a reheat, so we're very happy to bring it to you. It's a story of Mokhtar Al-Kanshali, an unlikely coffee entrepreneur. When he left off, he was being held captive in a Yemeni prison as the country
0:21.4	was erupting into full-blown civil war. Now, if you haven't heard part one yet, please go back and
0:25.6	start there. And remember, there's an episode of the Sporkful. You want us to pull out of the deep
0:29.0	freezer and reheat. Drop me a line to hello atsporkful.com. Thanks so much. And now, here's part
0:35.2	two of our story.
0:40.0	Previously on the Sporkful.
0:47.3	I would ask seasoned coffee, like buyers and roasters, where can I get Yemen coffee?
0:50.2	And they would say things like, it's just really hard to get.
0:53.1	We don't know where it comes from because we can't go to that country.
0:54.4	It's very expensive.
0:56.6	And it has a lot of defects.
0:58.2	But the best cup of coffee that I had was like a Yemen coffee
1:00.2	10 years ago or 20 years ago.
1:03.1	And I looked at Wollam.
1:04.4	He had this kind of Mona Lisa smile.
1:07.4	Like a very subtle smirk.
1:08.6	He's like, was that a smile I don't know maybe is it good is it bad
1:10.9	I don't know
1:11.3	it was so different
1:11.9	he said
1:12.6	this is one
1:13.1	the best coffees
	...

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