come my way and I’d be able to do what I love for a living.
All along, though, I was kidding myself, believing the myth
of the leap, which was the very thing holding me back from
my dream.
The Truth About the Leap
In the 1930s, Belgian settlers started planting coffee in
Burundi. For decades, the country was used to produce
nothing more than commodity coffee, its natural resources
neglected and depleted.^6 Although it contained a vast
supply of rich resources, Burundi’s coffee was overlooked.
That is, until recently.
If you take a look at a chart of the world’s poorest
countries, you will see Burundi almost at the top of the list,
with the second lowest GDP in the world.^7 Farmers in
Burundi plant all kinds of crops—bananas, cassava, and
beans—but coffee is one of their only cash crops,
accounting for 80 percent of the country’s export revenues.
More than half the population makes its living from coffee.^8
Coffee pays for farmers’ school fees for their kids, medical
bills for their families, and whatever food they can’t grow
themselves. In Burundi, coffee is a matter of life and death.
Apparently, when grown and roasted just right,
Burundian coffee is a drinking experience unlike no other
African bean. Due to poor distribution, however, much of