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[In a Moment of Vision...]
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It's 1849.
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William H. Bovee leaves his job at a coffee producer in New York City to seek his fortune in gold-fevered California.
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But leaving behind the luxuries of the city, Bovee leaves behind a more expedient cup of Joe.
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Out west, folks are still buying their coffee beans green, roasting the beans at home, then grinding them with a hand crank, all before actually brewing them.
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Bovee builds California's first coffee mill, packaging and selling pre-roasted beans.
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And in a moment of vision, he takes the process one step farther, making his mill the world's first to grind the already roasted beans on a large scale, then pack them conveniently into small, consumer-friendly tins.
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Only a few years later, however, Bovee tires of the coffee business and sells his shares of the company to a young employee, James Folger.
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Folger changes the name and grows the company to a nationwide brand, jumpstarting a race to find the quickest, easiest way to that morning caffeine fix.
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For the 64% of Americans that drink coffee daily, an expedient cup is practically essential.