Editorial Review

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 ofFor God, Country, and Coca-Cola.

Editorial Review

If coffee from a can or jar is your idea of purgatory, The Joy of Coffee is the book for you. Its author, Corby Kummer, originally came to the subject of coffee while writing a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly, and he found so much to say about the bean that he decided to write a book. Kummer began with some basic questions: "What matters most in buying coffee? How can you sort through the jumble of place names and whimsical labels on beans and blends? Is a dark roast better, more sophisticated, than a light roast? Is it essential to grind coffee beans at home?" What he learned in response to these queries comprises the bulk of The Joy of Coffee.

Reviews (4)

This is a good solid book on Coffee
I'm a coffee freak.I roast my own espresso and grind it with great care and pump it through a two group computer controlled professional Italian espresso machine. My wife thinks I'm obsessive about it. With that in mind, Perfect Cup provides a lot of excellent information that most people probably don't know, about how to make a great cup of coffee. It also talks about the characteristics of different kinds of coffee.If A&P 8:00 is your cup of tea...coffee, you might not give a damn, but if you really are curious...interested, passionate about coffee, you will probably enjoy reading this book.

Very helpful book
I highly recommend this book.I bought it as someone just getting into enjoying the coffee experience.I wanted a book that would help me learn more about brewing coffee, tasting, and what to expect from beans grown in the different areas of the world.It gave me the info. I was looking for.I also really enjoyed the section in which several coffee roasters across the US were interviewed about their roasting philosophies and what to them helped create that elusive perfect cup of coffee.

Reviews (5)

Exitantia: Coffea Arabica
For anyone who imbibes coffee on a ritualistic basis, and worships their coffee-pot, Kenneth David's book is your bible.Originally written in 1976 (I have the 1979 third printing which I found for $1 used!), and apparently now on its fifth printing, "Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying" has become quite popular.Previous reviewers have commented on its being slightly out of date, and one even complained about the brown ink print on tan paper!First off, with regards to modern equipment such as high quality grinders and coffee makers, and some information on where to buy coffee, David's guide may be in need of updating (I can't tell you what's in the newer editions).However, none of the important information in the book will ever be obsolete, and in any event, you can satisfy all your modern coffee equipment needs right here on Amazon.com -how convenient!Secondly, I have to say that the brown ink on off-white paper is ideally suited for the topic and quite pleasing to the eye.Since the 1970's gourmet coffee has swept the USA, and every shopping mall, city, and town has at least two or three gourmet coffee shops nearby (often within the same block), and so finding good quality coffee shouldn't be a problem at all.For mail order or retail outlets, I highly recommend Peets Coffee - www.peets.com - which in my opinion is by far the best gourmet coffee available on the market.

Coffee culture is timeless and I think you'll be pleased with the quality of information contained in this book.Each chapter is a "how to" guide on such subjects as the history, purchasing, tasting, roasting, grinding, brewing, serving, and growing of coffee.There is also a section about caffeine, and if you're looking for more in-depth reading about coffee as a "drug", than I suggest finding a copy of Dale Pendell's incredible poetical discourse on "Stimulating Plants, Potions & Herbcraft" entitled, "Pharmako/Dynamis" (Mercury House, 2002).For general reference, or historical curiosity, "Coffee" is both delightful and useful to have laying out on your coffee table, its soon to be tattered and stained pages faithfully awaiting your next coffee ceremony.

Coffee is Brown
Coffee is a brown beautiful color.Ink is black set to a white back ground in books for a very good reason.If I had known the printing in this book was a light brown color that is hard to read I would not have wasted my time or money.This may be a very good book but I will never know.Keep the color in the coffee and your hands off the ink.I have the fifth edition.

Reviews (4)

Good information on espresso
Kenneth Davids writes a lot of information on history and the art of making espresso coffee.The only thing that really bothered me was his method of writing.At times it was very clear, then it dropped off when it became more interesting, almost like "running out of room." The section on machines and equipment was fairly good, but it didn't give more details on each type of machine.

The source section was very limited on where to buy machines or coffee.Could have been better at rating coffee and machines.
The book was a little hard to read with very small type, and the monotone brown color of the illustrations.

Ultimate Coffee? Yes. Ultimate Book? I don't think so...
Ken Davids writes with his usual engaging style and authority in terms of "cuisine de caffeine" [this is, after all, one of three of his coffee guides.] The style of the book itself, however, makes this a sometimes less than coherent read. Numerous sidebars [or, espresso breaks] weave their way throughout the volume, causing the reader to page forward and back through the text in an attempt to follow the thread of the conversation.

There's good stuff here -- and frankly I wish every barista wannabe behind the counter would be required to read it. If only somebody would revoke the publisher's stylistic license....

Reviews (8)

If you can read you can roast
This book can take you from ground zero to roasting your coffee at home. In the process you will learn of the history and make-up of coffee. There are chapters on equipment and techniques. You get charts for telling the different results of roasting by time and color.

Just when you think you have it all down pat there are references as to where to purchase equipment, green coffee, and further reading.

I am dabbling with each method yet if you do not dive into roasting the information alone is worth the purchase price.

Fun, informative and enlightening!
Let me start off by saying that I do not like to read at all.I rarely start books and even more rarely finish them.With this book however I read it from cover to cover in three days!A very fun book for the coffee hobbyist or anyone who would like to learn more about coffee and home coffee roasting.Not only is this book packed with history (in a fun way) it is also a wealth of reference information regarding home roasting and the overall coffee process, from plant to cup!

This book is laid out in a very easy to read format.The chapters can be long but everything is broken down into small 1-4 page sections.Kenneth Davids has a real grasp on the fundamentals of coffee production and lays out a lot of information in an easy to follow entertaining way.The book reads very well from cover to cover.

The content is not too scientific and also not too general.Whether you have no idea about anything coffee or you are a coffee hobbyist (like me) you will learn a lot and come to appreciate all that goes into a truly good cup of coffee.Davids also includes a lot of reference information laid out in a fashion that is easy to search and locate specific information such as coffee origin notes, roasting and flavor terms, roasting equipment and methods to name a few.Davids does review and discuss many of todays home roasting equipment quite well however this information is already dated.Not to worry though the total of this information represents a small portion of the total book.

Included are also a lot of drawings and diagrams.This book really captures the romance of coffee and coffee roasting and delivers it in a wonderful easy to read and use fashion.I cannot put this book down and have read and reread many parts of it.I refer to the roasting notes and procedures to assist in my home roasting.This book is as much an indispensable tool as it is an entertaining easy chair read.If you even have a slight interest in coffee then this book has a lot to offer!

Reviews (5)

Great coffee book
This book gives a good basic understanding of what coffee is all about.I especially like the specificity of information about coffees from different areas in the Regional Character chapter.For example, discussing Costa Rica's two best growing areas and how the coffees differ.I also found the opinions of which coffees are worthy of their price helpful.I read the Perfect Cup first and am glad I did because it was a good coffee overview for me.Coffee Basics was a great second book for me because I was looking for more specific information about coffees of each area.If I hadn't read Perfect Cup first I think the break down of info. on each type of coffee/regional character would have been information overload for me.If you are new or relatively new to the coffee world and are excited about learning more and more about the subtlties and nuiances present in that cup, I highly recommend you read this book.

Covers a lot in very few words...
This is not exactly a great book, but then again, not exactly a bad book.It covers much about the industry of coffee and goes over the different regions that produce coffee.It describes what is and how to brew a perfect cup of coffee.

But I get a feeling of being rushed from one tidbit of information to the next.Just while I am almost within grasp of a certain concept or am about to form a picture of what it is trying to say it ends there without further detail.But it does repeat key information more than once throughout the book so you do walk away with greater knowledge than before.

If learning about coffee was compared to eating out, this book is best suited as either an appetizer or a desert.Appetizer to whet and get your brain ready to learn more about coffee, or as a desert, to catch up on and review over learned knowledge.

I guess that's why it is called "Coffee Basics" after all.

"A Perfect Cup" is a better selection in that it contains more information and better elaboration although that book is slightly dated being published in 1994.But coffee has been around way before 1994 so does it really matter?

Editorial Review

Reviews (8)

Great read, more travelogue than history
This is a quick and enjoyable book.Although I actually did learn quite a bit about an interesting subject, the book is as much of a travel story as it is the history of a foodstuff that has only become ubiquitous during the last several centuries.

I suspect that the search for the roots of coffee is just an excuse for a jaunt around the world, from the rain forests of Africa, to the bleakest coast of the Arabian peninsula, to an art scam in India, across the Atlantic in a tramp steamer and finally a road trip across America.Well, actually, that's a bit of a simplification--I missed a couple of continents.

It is an entertaining book.The author has a wry sense of humor and is an astute observer of human diversity.He's also something of a free spirit, and I have to wonder if his being stopped by Southern Patrolmen looking for drugs came as more of a surprise to him than to the reader.

The book really does operate at two levels, providing an interesting and informative story about the history of coffee, viewing it through contemporary eyes in the many locationswhere coffee made its way through history, eventually culminating in Starbucks.

Looking for the perfect cuppa joe?Sounds like a good story.Yeah.We can have some fun with that.Ask the barista for another latte grande and enjoy.

Stimulating reading
Author Stewart Lee Allen takes a wild romp through remote parts of the world in chase of the perfect cup of joe. From Yemen, Ethiopia, to Calcutta and Mysore, to Turkey, Europe, Brazil and finally the US, he takes us on a wild adventure. He proposes that Europe woke from being a backwater with a six-pack a day ale habit when coffee became the drink of choice. Did coffee alter history as well as grumpy morning moods? Well, the American colonists dumped their tea in Boston Harbor, brewed up a cup of caw-fee, and a successful revolution was underway shortly thereafter.

There is a lot about coffee in this book I sure didn't know (like related drinks made of the leaves and cherry husks, monkey dropping coffee and more.) The writing is funny, funny stuff, a lot like Bill Bryson. I recommend this book highly.

Psychedelic Monkey Droppings
Stewart Lee Allen theorizes in THE DEVIL'S CUP that coffee launched history out of the slowly moving, drunken Middle Ages (where each man woman and child consumed the equivalent of a six pack a day) to our current, sober and caffeinated instant. Stewart Lee Allen begins with coffee's obscure beginnings as an Ethiopian religious drug. The legend goes, "an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi one day noticed his best goat dancing about and baaing like a maniac," and the goatherd noticed the berries the goat had eaten, ate them himself, discovered coffee, and forever altered history. This goatherd's bean gradually stimulated history through the industrial revolution and spread of capitalism through the institutions of coffeehouses. Some of the world oldest and most powerful business, such as the East India Company and Wall Street, began as coffeehouses.

Much has changed in the actual preparation of coffee from its pre-historic role as a religious drug to it's present role as a vital nutritional supplement. The Ethiopian perfect cup is prepared in an elaborate coffee ceremony. The hostess roasts green beans at the table, passing around the freshly roasted beans for the gusts to enjoy the aroma, an ode to friendship is offered, the beans are powdered in a stone mortar and then brewed. In the last chapter, Stewart Lee Allen hits the highway, passing through the truck stop riddled South in search of the perfect American cup. He isn't looking for the carefully ground Italian knock-off coffee found in your local strip mall, but true black and palette scalding American Joe. The single most influential coffee recipe in American history involves egg shells and several stages of savagely boiling the beans. He finds this coffee, dumped piping hot out of a round glass carafe drip brewed hours maybe days before, slung down in a porcelain mug and saucer by a dog-tired waitress.

Isbn: 0875805795
Sales Rank: 422846
Subjects:  1. Agriculture - General    2. Anthropology - Cultural    3. Business/Economics    4. Coffee growers    5. Coffee industry    6. Costa Rica    7. Family farms    8. Industries - General    9. International - Economics    10. Sociology    11. Technology   

Reviews (5)

Greenville OH reader is dead wrong
Mr Haviza should stick to the comic books. Not only does this book provide recipes comparable to starbucks, it gives insight on how to tweak starbucks a little to bring out even more boldness. So Mr Haviza, just read the book again.This time without Abby sitting on top of you in all of her glory, although that is a pretty sight i might add

For the beginner
Mathew Tekulsky has set forth clear information and instructions for the begiining barista.He offers decent tips for making a good cup (Use fresh water, the importance of the proper grind, don't boil the water, and clean your equipment regularly).He explains clearly the various methods for brewing (drip, French press, vacuum method, the percolator etc.)And, of course, he has info about making espresso properly.

Most of the book consists of recipes, and I appreciated knowing the difference between, for example, the Cappuccino and the Cappuccino Royale (the Royale is a Cappuccino topped with whipped cream, and often with almond, rum, brandy, mint, or vanilla extract).

If you're a beginner, it's useful to have this information all in one place, but I must say that most of this is readily available on the Internet.And, you don't need this book if you have some coffee-brewing experience.

Reviews (2)

Far, far better than I thought it would be
I picked this up after being very entertained and informed by Uncommon Grounds. But I didn't read it right away because the text was so old (1934). When I did start reading it I kicked myself for not doing so sooner ... it is excellent.

Nothing has changed in the history of the business of coffee, the trees are still lovingly grown and harvested by hand by the poorest of peoples in the world. And those people still, as the book maps out clearly, live hand to mouth by the cyclic boom and bust of the worldwide supply and demand of the crop.

This is the living story of the commodity, not told like a text book but first hand by a man living through the Nazi/WW2 political aspects of the crop and the Cartels and the mass burnings of entire plantations and the hidden reserves and all the other ways that the supply levels has been manipulated to control the prices and the markets. It does not condemn, it just reports.

In a way, even the current glut of cheap robusta beans from Vietnam is here, because their recent pattern of ignoring the quotas followed by the rest of the coffee countries and their undercutting the prices at the certain real peril of their own citizens was done by other poor countries in the past.

It is a facinating little book for a lover of coffee or of history or of finance... because it is all still going on today. Exactly the way is was going on then.

Recently Mr. Schultz announced ath SBX prices would be going up due to the limited supply as though it was some revelation ... an announcement made by other major controllers through the generations ... while SBX continues to charge $1.50 per shot which is quite a markup from the half cents (or less) that that shot's amount of coffee costs them even after the the import and roasting costs. If you wonder how such statements can be made while SBX still is forcasting record growth... read this book, it's a game that has been played many times before.

Team this with the excellent dvd/video "The Passionate Harvest: Chronicling Coffee Production Around the World" (which you can't yet get from Amazon but can with a google search) and you will look at the ubiquitous beverage in a totaly new way.

btw: I am not against SBX per se, New York Marketing man Schultz and his team of former fast food and soft drink executives are in business to turn profits and they have done it very very well and made customers very happy, breaking the mold by keeping prices higher rather than lower which has been good in many ways for the specialty coffee industry. But after reading this book you will see that the company is a perfect example of the adages "nothing new under the sun" and "it fooled them before, let's do it again" ;-)

Reviews (1)

Reviews (7)

Fantastic resipes!!
This book contains some of the most delicious and easy to prepare recipes. After serving some of these treats I received rave reviews from friends and they wanted the recipes.
An interesting history of coffee at the begining but the simple tasty recipes are what makes this book a keeper!!

Heavier on desserts than beverages, but oh, so delicious!
The "Maxwell House Coffee Drinks & Desserts Cookbook" starts off with some information & history on coffee and "The Maxwell House Story," followed by some information about brewing & serving coffee. The brewing & serving tricks are fairly standard. The rest of the book seems a little arbitrarily divided up. The sections are: Breakfast & Brunch; Coffee Break; Lunch; Afternoon Coffee Time; Dinner; After the Show; Midnight Snack. This means that if you want to find a certain kind of recipe, you should look in the index instead of trying to find the right chapter. After all, there are plenty of things that could work equally well for any of the above coffee times. The beginning of each chapter has a list of the recipes in it, though, which helps. The layout of the recipes is great, and most recipes are quite short and simple. Prep time and baking time are provided up front! The ingredients are set off from the instructions quite well, and the instructions are broken up into manageable chunks.

The beverages are simple, and some of them made me shrug. We already do things like add cinnamon or vanilla to our coffee, so those recipes don't add anything new to our repertoire.On the other hand, there are things like the "Shake Awake Smoothie," with double-strength coffee, banana, vanilla yogurt, sugar, and ice cubes. Simple it may be, but it's also yummy! Some recipes call for instant mixes, which may rub some people the wrong way. The hot chocolate cappuccino is just milk, chocolate, and instant cappuccino mix, for example.

The desserts include shortcakes with espresso cream, Hawaiian dessert sauce, cappuccino sticky buns, coffee cream cheese for your bagels, coffee cinnamon cream cheese brownies, banana caramel cafe pie, cafe panna cotta, caffe latte bread pudding, tiramisu cheesecake, and much more. Many of the recipes come with wonderful pictures.

This is an absolutely wonderful cookbook, and every recipe we've tried from it has come out perfectly. It is a fine source of new & unusual ways to drink coffee, as well as interesting recipes you can make with coffee.

An absolute treasure!
This handy little cookbook is an absolute treasure! It starts out with a fascinating history of coffee, a history of Maxwell House, and then has some brewing and serving "tips and tricks." After that come the recipes!

The recipes are organized into seven chapters: 1) Breakfast and Brunch, 2) Coffee Break, 3) Lunch, 4) Afternoon Coffee Time, 5) Dinner, 6) After the Show, and 7) Midnight snack. Each of the more than 160 recipes(!) starts out with a list of preparation and (if applicable) baking times, a complexity rating (one cup to four!), a list of ingredients, and very clear step-by-step instructions.