The Devil's Cup
"Stewart Lee Allen is a self-appointed social anthropologist of coffee who has consumed 2,920 liters of percolated, drip, espresso, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, con panna, instant and americana, all in the pursuit of the truth about coffee. Is it, as someone posits, the substance that drives history? An over stimulated traveler, Allen gives himself the task of testing this thesis and sets out across the globe to pursue his evidence.". "Disdaining forbidden borders and dangerous domains, he researches cults in Ethiopia that used coffee as a kind of sacrament, sails a dhow along the same lanes that carried the first beans to Yemen 1500 years ago, and treks to India where seedlings were smuggled. He walks the slave trails in Zaire along which coffee trees have grown from beans discarded by captives, and explores the ruins of a slave-operated coffee plantation in Brazil. He takes coffee with devotees in Istanbul, in the back alleys of Jiga Jiga and in the posh salons of Vienna and Paris, and London where coffeehouses evolved into stock exchanges, insurance brokerages and tabloid magazines."--BOOK JACKET.