Most of us canât make it through morning without our cup (or cups) of joe, and weâre not alone. Coffee is a global beverage: itâs grown commercially on four continents and consumed enthusiastically on all sevenâand there is even an Italian espresso machine on the International Space Station. Coffeeâs journey has taken it from the forests of Ethiopia to the fincas of Latin America, from Ottoman coffee houses to âThird Waveâ cafÊs, and from the simple coffee pot to the capsule machine. In Coffee: A Global History, Jonathan Morris explains both how the world acquired a taste for this humble bean, and why the beverage tastes so differently throughout the world.
Sifting through the grounds of coffee history, Morris discusses the diverse cast of caffeinated characters who drank coffee, why and where they did so, as well as how it was prepared and what it tasted like. He identifies the regions and ways in which coffee has been grown, who worked the farms and who owned them, and how the beans were processed, traded, and transported. Morris also explores the businesses behind coffeeâthe brokers, roasters, and machine manufacturersâand dissects the geopolitics linking producers to consumers. Written in a style as invigorating as that first cup of Java, and featuring fantastic recipes, images, stories, and surprising facts, Coffee will fascinate foodies, food historians, baristas, and the many people who regard this ancient brew as a staple of modern life.