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 Ring
Review
If you are looking for something light that offers some tips for tasters or a cultural history on some of the exotic places that coffee is grown, or even an appropriate book for your coffee table, I suggest you look elsewhere. This book is none of that. This book is pretty narrow in focus and limits itself to discussions on the history of coffee growing and the business end of the industry. Topics covered include trading, marketing and distribution, consumption patterns, the emergence of cafe’s and big coffeehouses, and the social, environmental, and political issues in both the producing and consuming nations. As with so many recently published books this one suffers from a pop-culture sounding title which is deliberately eye-catching, but misleading with its grandiose claim. These titles work best with popular science books about arcane subjects that changed the world set in stories about eccentric heroes and villains. I enjoy those books but this is a different book. This serious work is more referrence book than story. Don’t get me wrong though. UNCOMMON GROUNDS: THE HISTORY OF COFFEE AND HOW IT TRANSFORMED OUR WORLD is too well written and has enough anecdotes to provide the “latte” for what could otherwise have been simply a dark and thick text-book.
One of the issues that Pendergrast focuses on is the stark social contrasts between where coffee is grown and the markets where it is consumed. As we read on it becomes very apparent that for Pendergrast, researching this book was part moral lesson. He pays special attention to issues of economic justice and makes us see some of coffee’s story in this light. He says coffee “laborers earn an average of $3 a day. Most live in abject poverty without plumbing, electricity, medical care, or nutritious foods”. After shipping and processing the product arrives here at market where “cosmopolitan consumers routinely pay half a day’s Third World wages for a good cup of coffee.” Along these same lines Pendergrast talks about a movement in the speciality coffee sector towards the idea of “fair trade” coffee which seeks – in the slogan of one of the companies – to offer “Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup”. Equal Exchange in the US and Max Havelaar Quality Mark coffee in Europe are the best known groups that say we should consider human rights issues when choosing a brand.
Equally as interesting is the topic of “bird-friendly coffee”. Basically it involves a long standing debate over the merits of “shade coffee” (grown under a canopy of trees and thus bird-friendly) or “sun coffee” which is grown on open and exposed slopes. As happens with most things, the discussion ends up as a political argument with opponents of the ecological approach labelling it politically correct coffee. Perhaps that’s true, or maybe as others have suggested, it’s a brilliant marketing strategy for selling speciality coffee. Pendergrast doesn’t say what he thinks but his presentation of a few facts gives us a hint. “Of the fifty-four million Americans who consider themselves birders, twenty-four million actually travelled in 1991 to observe their avian friends. In the process, they spent $2.5 billion – and who knows how much of that went for strong predawn coffee?”
Want to know about coffee prices? Prendergast explains. “One thing I have learned through my coffee research: One consumer’s poison is another’s nectar.” In other words it’s all relative and price is very subjective. “Then there’s the psychological factor. The rarer the bean the more expensive and desirable. Hence, Hawaiian Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain command premium prices, even though most coffee experts consider them bland in comparison to Guatemalan Antigua or Kenya AA.” Of course price is a function of supply and demand and no discussion of coffee could end without referrence to the US. We are the largest market and the home of the biggest coffeehouses (Starbucks of course). The Finns however beat us cups down when it comes to per capita consumption.
I’ve lived in both Kenya and Jamaica and have had my fair share of their coffee and am a birder myself. The books coverage of those topics was therefore of particular interest to me. Whatever your tastes and interests and whether or not you even drink coffee, there’s much to learn and even more to enjoy in this fascinating look at our favorite brew. – Michaeleve, Amazon Review
