But for Keith Hawkins and the group of teens he leads in Houston's Fifth Ward, the popular drink is about more than a caffeine kick.
In fact, Hawkins teaches students about every aspect of coffee from - seed to cup - but recently, that's meant looking to the history of their own neighborhood to brew something that can be appreciated by all people from all communities.
"Let's talk about how the day went today for you guys. How was school today?" Hawkins asks.
He and students Paul, Lonnell, and Javier have gathered around in a circle for conversation and a bit of an after-school snack.
"Talk to me about what you guys know about Dr. Martin Luther King, other than the 'I Have a Dream Speech,'" Hawkins continues.
Inside the room at the Fifth Ward Multi-Service Center, it's the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and the group is catching up.
Chats like these are a critical part of every meeting that begin with the key ingredient of coffee.
"What I try to do is create these spaces for these young people to have, where they can come and say, look, 'I may not want to get in coffee, but I have job skills that are prevalent or relatable to any industry,'" Hawkins told ABC13.
Hawkins founded the Color of Coffee Collective in 2021 and with it -- coffee camps, giving students hands-on training and education about the beverage that about two-thirds of American adults drink each day, and according to the National Coffee Association, had an economic impact of more than $340 billion in the United States alone in 2022.
"I'm actually very happy that he created this group," said 16-year-old student Paul Lewis - Snell. "I didn't know much about coffee. And so not only did I learn how to make it, I learned to do step-by-step to make not just coffee, but lattes and pretty much every single one of them you could think of."
Hawkins is the coffee instructor at the Urban Enrichment Institute at the center, where he shares the knowledge he's acquired after nearly 30 years and counting in the business.
The institute itself is an after-school program that has served the Fifth Ward community for over 40 years. Formerly known as the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program, it was designed to help provide at risk-young men with a path to college and career development in areas and neighborhoods where gang violence, drug abuse, and high dropout rates are prevalent, according to the website.
"I literally prayed about how can I make the industry better and what does that look like? And the vision was launched and cast and here we are today creating spaces for all people of all colors," Hawkins explained.
Hawkins served in the Army for 10 years, but after leaving the military, wasn't sure which direction to take until a friend told him about a possible opportunity.
"A friend of mine said, 'Hey, man, they're hiring over here at this company for coffee delivery drivers. And I was like, 'Cool, man. I'll get it,'" Hawkins begins. "And actually, it started out as a water delivery, and then it slowly grew into a coffee route. Here I am 28 years later and still in the industry, just moved in different areas of the industry and I love every bit of it."
Through the Color of Coffee Collective, Hawkins says the goal is to introduce coffee to students as a way of workforce development, and while most people may think that means barista, there are many other avenues.
"Whether you want to be a roaster of coffee, you want to be a producer of coffee, you want to learn how to sell and buy coffee, you want to trade coffee, you want to be a small business owner... That's our goal and then literally we try to teach them every aspect of the business," he explained.
Part of that learning has turned into creating their own coffee brand, 1866 Coffee.
"It was about the history of Fifth Ward, like where it came from, the roots of Fifth Ward," student Lonnell O'Bryant, 18, said.
And they are roots that run deep.
Fifth Ward sits just northeast of downtown Houston.
Settled by freedmen, it was established in 1866 and added to the city's ward system, which legally no longer exists, but the designation remained.
During the 1880s, Fifth Ward started to prosper until 1912 when a fire devastated the north side of the community.
By the 1950s, it bounced back, going on to become the heart of Black Houston. The artery central to that success was Lyons Avenue.
"Fifth Ward is rich with so much heritage both with musical talents as well as not just athletic talents, but just overall ingenuity and brilliance and great politicians who have come from this community and have made an impact not just in this city, but in this country," Hawkins explained.
Notable names like Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland to George Foreman and the Geto Boys -- all hailing from Fifth Ward.
Some of the places in Fifth Ward just as popular, whether in the past, like music mogul Don Robey's Peacock Records and the historic Creole enclave of Frenchtown to the present with the still standing DeLuxe Theater - the first African American movie house in Houston.
But it hasn't always been easy to thrive.
"We still live in a food desert, and times are hard, and economically they're hard, and not just on... on the parents, but the students as well," Hawkins said.
History hasn't helped.
Among the problems - freeway projects I-10 and Highway 59 ripped through the community in the 1960s, creating literal barriers that severed Lyons Avenue and led to building abandonment and population decline. The decay also added to a reputation for crime.
But a look back at ABC13's archives shows investment has long been on the minds of Fifth Ward residents.
As one resident told Eyewitness News in 1971 during the Swiney Park Street Festival, "The people got together out here and said, 'Well, you know, we're going to uplift our community because everybody's pointing the finger at us."
That day ABC13's Charles Porter Jr. - the first Black reporter and anchor in Houston - was on the ground in Fifth Ward covering the event.
"Swiney Park Street Festival is more than a lot of fun, more than a lot of free food. It is an appreciation for the residents of this neighborhood, for their self-initiative," Porter reported at the time.
In recent years, some projects have looked to preserve the history of Fifth Ward, and now you could say that includes 1866 Coffee.
Hawkins says that the students trained for two-and-a-half years, so the next step was looking for something different to do after having taken field trips to places like Texas A&M's coffee center to boost their experience.
"It actually made me feel great because not only do I get this opportunity, I can also introduce this opportunity to other people that I know and we all can use this opportunity," Paul said. "If you get an opportunity like this, take advantage of it, because it's probably not going to happen again."
"I think I've seen students go from, 'Man, I don't drink coffee, and I don't know what that means, and I don't even have an idea, and why would I want to be a part of something like that?' to everyday excited to come in to brew up another cup of coffee, to perfect the coffee that they made the time before," Hawkins said.
While the students' 1866 Coffee started as an idea right there in class, the brand goes beyond Texas borders.
The coffee is produced in Ethiopia -- widely considered the birthplace of coffee.
But it does come full circle to the Lone Star State; the coffee is shipped to Texas, and roasted in Taylor, about 40 minutes from Austin.
And if you ask the students in Hawkins' coffee camps, the brand even goes beyond that.
"Not just about coffee, but how to be a better person, how to be a better man in the future?" Lonnell shared. "Where are you going to go in the future? What helps you?"
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