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|---|---|---|---|---|
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Summary
Summary
The extraordinary tale of the wildfire spread of the consumption of a drink which is embedded in our history and our daily cultural life.
The coffee industry worldwide employs more people - thirty million - than any other. It is the lifeblood of many third world countries, either earning them invaluable foreign currency or enslaving them to the monster that is modern global capitalism, depending on how you look at it. From obscure beginnings in East Africa a millennia ago and its early days as an aid to religious devotion, coffee became an integral part of the rise of European mercantilism from the seventeenth-century onwards. As well as being a valued trading commodity, it was the preferred beverage of the merchants who did the trading. The rise of the coffee house and the City of London were inextricably, perhaps even mysteriously linked.
In Coffee Tales, Tony Wild delves into the chemistry of coffee and its mysterious properties. He travels to Yemen, the source of the history of coffee, where European traders made their way across the Tihama desert to sample the delights of this exotic drink. He explores references to coffee in ancient texts of the Bible, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Always the natural recourse of the subversive and revolutionary, Sulemein the Magnificent banned coffee in Constantinople - offenders were sewn up in sacks and thrown into the Bosphorus.
coffee as allegory for global greed and mercantile ruthlessness. To many people, coffee has become largely just another commodity. Coffee Tales will restore our faith in the mystery of this unique beverage, embedded deep in our history and our daily cultural life.
Author Notes
Antony Wild is uniquely placed to write about the fascinating history of coffee. He has worked for thirteen years as a buying director for the country's foremost speciality coffee roaster and introduced previously unheard-of coffees to the United Kingdom. He is Director of the East India Company and has written several books, including THE EAST INDIA COMPANY and REMAINS OF THE RAJ, both published by HarperCollins.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
While coffee historian Wild brings enthusiasm to this tome on the 500-year history of the caffeinated bean, it doesn't match the simple passion with which coffee lovers enjoy their morning java. (In fairness to the author, how could it?) Wild (The East India Company) traces the bean as it makes its way from Africa to the Middle East (it was once known as the "wine of Araby") to the West, and the rise in cafe culture across Europe and eventually the New World, where, thanks to the Boston Tea Party, coffee surpassed tea as the patriotic drink of choice for a fledging nation. But Wild repeatedly reminds readers that for all the pleasure a cup of coffee brings to its drinker, the history of this beguiling brew is indeed dark. As long as there has been coffee, Wild asserts, there have been colonial powers-and now corporations-to exploit the workers that grow it. While this is a fascinating story that combines history with anthropology, too often the writing is buried under the heartless statistics of economic formulations. However, the work does provide caffeine junkies with intriguing reading material next time they find themselves waiting in line to order their grande vanilla latte. Illus. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Wild reveals that in the U.S. alone, some 1.5 million people are involved in the coffee industry either directly through coffee processing, sales, and distribution or indirectly through manufacture of paper cups and the like. Although coffee consumption is rising, the amount of money paid to coffee producers continues to fall, reducing many to poverty and destroying already fragile economies. Ironically, some of the trouble in coffee markets may be attributed to U.S. efforts to revive Vietnam's economy through the planting of lesser-quality coffee bushes. Wild further links coffee to ill health and to colonialism, and he holds in particular contempt the development of instant coffee. Tracing coffee's history and spread from sixteenth-century East Africa and Arabia, Wild perceptively connects it with Napoleon's career and with the poet Rimbaud. Wild depicts a particularly unflattering picture of competing efforts to endorse or to condemn caffeine's invigorating effect. His radical take on the rise of Starbucks makes McDonald's growth look innocuous. Wild may represent an extreme stance, but his effort raises many troubling questions. --Mark Knoblauch Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Wild (The East India Company) has been widely recognized for introducing specialty coffees to Great Britain. Here, he presents a 500-year history of the much-loved drink, drawing on science, politics, anthropology, and alchemy before concluding that today's large companies, with their demand for lower prices, have put coffee farmers out of business and thousands of workers out of jobs in Africa and Central America. Wild's explanation of how major corporations have taken over the coffee industry, supported by public information direct from the coffee distributors themselves, will inspire readers to comtemplate their contribution to this global situation. The only comparison would be Stewart Lee Allen's The Devil's Cup, which describes similar facts but from the first person. With its political and historical perspectives, this book reads more like a textbook. Recommended for academic libraries; an optional purchase for others.-Jennifer A. Wickes, Suite101.com, Pine Beach, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.