"Sàpiens" is a Catalan magazine about historical dissemination.
This illustration was made for the "Lost Jobs" section, in which each month the magazine talks about a job that no longer exists. The title of the article was "Coffee Sniffers: chasing a forbidden pleasure" written by Anna-Priscila Magriñà.
In this case the article was about the "coffee sniffers". During the 18th century, in Prussia, the coffers had suffered a monetary decline due to the 7 Years' War. That is why the king decided to declare certain popular products (including coffee) as luxury goods.
This fact caused the population to engage in smuggling and, to prevent this, the "coffee sniffers" emerged. These people (who were soldiers retired from the army due to war injuries) used their sense of smell to detect where coffee was being roasted illegally.
For the illustration I drew a character with the uniform of the Prussian army. He is in the middle of his investigative work.
