I decided to quit coffee about a month ago because even though it is not that harmful to my health I realised I only consumed it because of addiction rather than it making my life any better. Considering I abstain from all other social drugs anyway, and it was also the last big source of sugar in my life, that was also convenient.
The constant headache went by in a week or so, but these last two days have been the first time since that I haven’t had sudden urges to nap in the afternoon. I never expected quitting coffee to be so disruptive for such a mild drug, so I can’t even imagine how much worse it would be with alcohol, opioids or crack or doing it while particularly busy. It also helped me get my sleep in order, which I dumbly didn’t even think about beforehand. Heartly recommend trying it out (in your time off!).
I have no idea, but I think most of it is produced in China and our resident PRC nerds might be able to find out. I don’t think there’s much inherently exploitative in most forms of agriculture (except manually cutting sugar cane), just that it depends on the scale and rights of the workers. My issue with coffee is that it went from a small focus boost to being held hostage by the inconvenience of abstinence, and I thought “why not?”. The coffee craze did begin with slave labour but at least the plant is not some addictive grassblade bamboo from hell that cuts you and gives you tetanus.