Java Nation: Spilling Beans on the Coffee Industry Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Java Nation: Spilling Beans on the Coffee Industry Book

Since its discovery in an Ethiopian rainforest centuries ago, coffee has brewed up a rich and troubled history, according to Uncommon Grounds, a sweeping book by business writer Mark Pendergrast. Over the years, the beverage has fomented revolution, spurred deforestation, enriched a few while impoverishing the many, and addicted millions with its psychoactive caffeine. Coffee is now the world's second most valuable legal commodity, behind oil, according to Pendergrast, who is also author of For God, Country, and Coca-Cola. "A good cup of coffee can turn the worst day tolerable, can provide an all-important moment of contemplation, can rekindle a romance," he writes. "And yet, poetic as its taste may be, coffee's history is rife with controversy and politics." For example, coffee bankrolled Idi Amin's genocidal regime in Uganda and the Sandinistas' revolution in Nicaragua. Uncommon Grounds provides some fascinating tidbits. Did you know that coffeehouses helped spawn the French and American revolutions? Or that coffee supplanted alcohol as a favorite breakfast drink in Britain in the late 1600s, and later became a patriotic American beverage after the Boston Tea Party? Pendergrast also details the rise and fall of regional coffee brands in the United States, the role of advertising in the industry, the global economic impact of coffee prices, and the recent emergence of specialty-coffee retailers--Starbucks, for example. Finally, he explores the social and environmental ramifications of coffee and highlights recent attempts to encourage a livable wage and environmental protection in coffee-producing nations such as Brazil. Pendergrast also includes an appendix on "how to brew the perfect cup." This wide-ranging book is a good read for those curious about the history and context behind that morning cup of coffee, as well as for those strictly interested in the business side of the industry. --Dan RingRead More

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  • Product Description

    The first comprehensive business and social history of coffee, from the author of the widely acclaimed For God, Country and Coca-Cola

    From its discovery in ancient Ethiopia to its role as a millennial elixir in the Age of Starbucks, coffee has dominated and molded the economies, politics, and social structures of entire countries. The second most valuable exported legal commodity on earth, it has sparked revolutions, romances, business deals, and friendships. Uncommon Grounds traces the journey of coffee from its origins on tropical mountainsides cultivated by poor laborers to the coffee bars of the United States, Europe, and Japan, where cosmopolitan consumers pay half a day's Third World wages for one good cup. Pendergrast's scrupulously researched and lively anecdotal history provides a window through which to view broader themes of modern-day media and marketing, the rise of mass production, colonialism, women's issues, and international commodity schemes.

  • 0465036317
  • 9780465036318
  • Mark Pendergast
  • 1 May 1999
  • Basic Books
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 522
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