He played Wolverine. But most people who drink his coffee don’t know he founded the company—or why.
2009.Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia.
Hugh Jackman landed at a small airstrip in the highlands of southern Ethiopia.
He was 40 years old. He was the most famous Australian actor in the world. He’d played Wolverine in four X-Men films. He’d won a Tony Award on Broadway. He’d hosted the Academy Awards a few months earlier.
He was in Ethiopia as an ambassador for World Vision.
He’d come to make a short documentary about a community development project.
He hadn’t come to meet anyone in particular.
The Land Rover drove him and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness six hours into the highlands, to the Yirgacheffe region.
Yirgacheffe is the birthplace of coffee.
The Land Rover stopped at a small farm. Two hectares. The house had dirt floors and no electricity.
The farmer was 27 years old.
His name was Dukale.
He had a wife named Adanech and five children. His oldest son was five years old.
His name was Elias.
Hugh asked if he could spend the day working with Dukale.
Dukale said yes.
They started at dawn.
They planted seedlings together. They worked the soil. Dukale showed Hugh how a coffee tree grows. He showed him the careful shade-growing technique he used. He showed him the small drying patio where he laid the beans out to dry in the sun.
Hugh listened.
Dukale told him about the price of coffee.
Coffee farmers in Ethiopia received 1 to 2 percent of the final retail price of the coffee they grew.
The other 98 percent went to middlemen, exporters, roasters, and grocery chains.
A farmer like Dukale could work 12 hours a day for a year and still not have enough money to send his children to school.
Dukale told Hugh he had a dream.
He wanted Elias to be educated.
He wanted all five of his children to be educated.
Before Hugh left that evening, he and Dukale planted two more trees together.
They named them after Hugh’s children.
Oscar. Ava.
Hugh promised Dukale he would come back. He promised he would do something.
He didn’t know yet what.
He flew back to New York.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Dukale.
A few months later, he gave a speech at UN Climate Week. He stood in front of presidents and prime ministers and made a pleading case for the world’s coffee farmers.
He said the words “fair trade“ twenty-five times.
He told them about Dukale.
He flew home from the UN.
He realized a speech wasn’t enough.
In 2011, Hugh Jackman opened a small coffee shop in Tribeca, New York.
He called it Laughing Man Coffee & Tea.
He had one rule.
100 percent of his personal profits from the company would go to the Laughing Man Foundation.
The foundation would fund education, water wells, and agricultural training in coffee-growing communities.
The first community it would fund was Dukale’s.
The cafe bought Dukale’s beans directly. It paid him a fair-trade price.
The most popular blend on the menu was called Dukale’s Dream.
It still is.
In 2015, Hugh signed a partnership with Keurig.
Dukale’s blend went into K-Cups.
The coffee Dukale grew on his 2-hectare farm in the Ethiopian highlands started being brewed in homes across America.
By 2024, Laughing Man Coffee had grown into a national brand.
Two cafes in Manhattan. Bagged products in over 6,000 grocery stores. A wholesale program serving hundreds of restaurants and offices.
Every cent of Hugh’s personal profits has continued to go to the foundation.
The foundation has now funded education and infrastructure programs in seven countries.
It has helped over 1,000 coffee-farming families lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
It has built schools.
The trees Hugh and Dukale planted together in 2009 are now 16 years old.
They’re bearing fruit.
The coffee beans from the Oscar tree and the Ava tree—named after Hugh’s children—are sold in the Tribeca cafe.
Dukale himself is now 43 years old.
He’s expanded his farm. He’s bought more land. He’s opened his own cafe in his own town.
He’s built a larger house for his family with a tin roof and electricity.
His son Elias is in college.
Elias is the first member of the Dukale family to attend college in five generations.
Hugh Jackman has continued, in the 16 years since that afternoon in Yirgacheffe, to act, sing, and tour.
He returned as Wolverine in “Deadpool & Wolverine“ in July 2024. The film grossed $1.3 billion worldwide.
He won his second Tony in 2022.
He hasn’t been back to Ethiopia since 2009.
He’s said in interviews, more than once, that he’s been waiting for his own children to be old enough to travel with him to meet Dukale.
Oscar and Ava are now 25 and 19.
He’s told a reporter that the trip is on the calendar.
There are now two Laughing Man cafes in Manhattan.
The walls of both of them are decorated with photographs of Dukale and his family.
There are no photographs of Hugh.
He designed it that way.
Most of the customers who come in for a flat white in the morning don’t know that the cafe was founded by the man who played Wolverine.
They don’t need to know.
The coffee is excellent. The price is fair. The beans were grown by a farmer in the Ethiopian highlands who’s now able to send his children to school.
That’s enough.
