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Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. In this updated edition of the classic work, Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous “Coffee Crisis” that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the Fair Trade movement and the “third-wave” of quality-obsessed coffee connoisseurs. As the scope of coffee culture continues to expand, Uncommon Grounds remains more than ever a brilliantly entertaining guide to the currents of one of the world’s favorite beverages.
450 pages, Paperback
First published May 20, 1999
About the author
Mark Pendergrast
33 books84 followersMark Pendergrast was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, the fourth of seven children in a family that valued civil rights, the environment, sailing, reading, and games of chase and charades. He earned a B.A. in English literature from Harvard, taught high school and elementary school, then went back to Simmons College for a masters in library science and worked as an academic librarian—all the while writing freelance articles for newspapers and magazines. In 1991, he began writing books full time, which allows him to follow his rather eclectic interests.
Pendergrast’s books have been published in 15 languages. For God, Country & Coca-Cola was named a notable book of the year by the New York Times, and Discover Magazine chose Mirror Mirror as one of the top science books of the year. Pendergrast has given speeches to professional groups, business associations, and college audiences in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Germany. He has appeared on dozens of television shows, including the Today Show, CBS This Morning, and CNN, and has been interviewed on over 100 radio programs, including All Things Considered, Marketplace, Morning Edition, and many other public radio shows. He lives in Colchester, Vermont.
Pendergrast’s books have been published in 15 languages. For God, Country & Coca-Cola was named a notable book of the year by the New York Times, and Discover Magazine chose Mirror Mirror as one of the top science books of the year. Pendergrast has given speeches to professional groups, business associations, and college audiences in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Germany. He has appeared on dozens of television shows, including the Today Show, CBS This Morning, and CNN, and has been interviewed on over 100 radio programs, including All Things Considered, Marketplace, Morning Edition, and many other public radio shows. He lives in Colchester, Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 284 reviews
February 21, 2009
I have to give the author credit; it can't have been easy to make coffee soporific. But that's just what Mark Pendergrast has done with Uncommon Grounds!
"Coffee provides one fascinating thread, stitching together the disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, medicine, and business, and offering a way to follow the interactions that have formed a global economy," he states in the concluding chapter. I totally agree; I think that that would have been a fascinating book. But that is not this book. (Perhaps Pendergrast thinks it is?) I would have loved a history of the (continued) domestication of coffee, a la Michael Pollan's treatment of apples, potatoes, tulips, and marijuana in The Botany of Desire. Unfortunately, Pendergrast really glossed over these aspects, instead focusing on the pricing and advertising of coffee through the ages. I have nothing of the ad-man, businessman, or economist in me, and it completely failed to capture my interest.
To make matters worse, I really took exception to Pendergrast's "voice". It's very easy to appear liberal and enlightened when in comparison with previous generations and I think it's better to avoid potshots at the past. Pendergrast clearly doesn't. Objective journalism this is not. The tone is smugly judgmental. He constantly denigrates past eras for their sexism and racism (primarily in their advertisements, of course) and even for their (atrocious) taste in coffee!
"Coffee provides one fascinating thread, stitching together the disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, medicine, and business, and offering a way to follow the interactions that have formed a global economy," he states in the concluding chapter. I totally agree; I think that that would have been a fascinating book. But that is not this book. (Perhaps Pendergrast thinks it is?) I would have loved a history of the (continued) domestication of coffee, a la Michael Pollan's treatment of apples, potatoes, tulips, and marijuana in The Botany of Desire. Unfortunately, Pendergrast really glossed over these aspects, instead focusing on the pricing and advertising of coffee through the ages. I have nothing of the ad-man, businessman, or economist in me, and it completely failed to capture my interest.
To make matters worse, I really took exception to Pendergrast's "voice". It's very easy to appear liberal and enlightened when in comparison with previous generations and I think it's better to avoid potshots at the past. Pendergrast clearly doesn't. Objective journalism this is not. The tone is smugly judgmental. He constantly denigrates past eras for their sexism and racism (primarily in their advertisements, of course) and even for their (atrocious) taste in coffee!
August 4, 2008
I'm giving this book only 2 stars due to poor writing and even worse editing. It seems as if after the first 175 pages the editors (feeling the same as I did) got bored reading the manuscript and just sent it to the printers out of exhaustion. This is most evident when you get to the last 50 pages, when we finally learn the most basic facts about the thing we had been reading about for such a painfully long time: coffee's chemical composition, and the scientific facts about caffeine's affect on the body. A high school newspaper editor would have had sense enough to discuss such things in the beginning of the book.
On the positive side, the book filled in the gaps of what I already knew about how coffee gets into my cup (which wasn't much). It truly was interesting to learn about the Central/South American coffee-producing countries and U.S. involvement in their history - something completely ignored in public school history class.
But, altogether I was disappointed. My initial excitement over this book waned into an unenthusiastic duty to finish in order to get the damn book back to the library in time before I racked up too many fines.
On the positive side, the book filled in the gaps of what I already knew about how coffee gets into my cup (which wasn't much). It truly was interesting to learn about the Central/South American coffee-producing countries and U.S. involvement in their history - something completely ignored in public school history class.
But, altogether I was disappointed. My initial excitement over this book waned into an unenthusiastic duty to finish in order to get the damn book back to the library in time before I racked up too many fines.
June 28, 2015
THE GOOD: Detailed accounts of the competitive marketing tactics used by coffee companies in America throughout the past hundred plus years, as well as the history of the bean as it influenced coffee producing countries and their export relationships with the United States.
THE BAD: Writing with a journalistic and not objective historical tone which means the text is replete with the authors anachronistic judgments on everything from what advertisements were sexist to what coffee blends and methods are poor/superior etc..
Overall, however, I learned a lot. Worth the read even though some of it felt like I was slogging through it.
THE BAD: Writing with a journalistic and not objective historical tone which means the text is replete with the authors anachronistic judgments on everything from what advertisements were sexist to what coffee blends and methods are poor/superior etc..
Overall, however, I learned a lot. Worth the read even though some of it felt like I was slogging through it.
November 1, 2018
This is an interesting look at all the political and economic forces that interacted with perhaps the most influential beverage of our time. Anecdotes about the trajectories of the coffee industry in the 19th and 20th centuries are where this book shone the most for me. The author has clearly done enormous research and offers up juicy tidbits about the cereal-coffee wars instigated by E.W. Post (of General Foods Post Cereal fame) for example. Stories of the first women coffee-baronesses and the rampant sexism they faced, were also fascinating. Where the book suffers is by trying to be too ambitious. A few mild criticisms.
1. Transformed "our world" in the title. Really? The book references to Latin America are confined strictly to areas where the economics and marketing collided or coincided with American interests. Ethiopia, Kenya and other African coffee giants elicit passing mention at best. "A marketing and economic history of the coffee industry in the U.S." or something like it would be more apt.
2. It was very hard to find central themes or takeaways from a sweeping narrative . I found myself struggling to summarize every chapter in my mind. The final chapter was excellent in terms of offering a macro- look at the future of coffee and its likely impacts but the rest of the book is essentially stream-of-consciousness. Not a bad thing necessarily but something to be aware of.
3. This book could have used some more brutal editing. Forcing central themes and tighter academic style writing would have cut the intimidating length by 25%. Of course, that style of writing would have cut by review length by 50%! :-)
Still a recommended read for lovers and haters of the brew alike.
1. Transformed "our world" in the title. Really? The book references to Latin America are confined strictly to areas where the economics and marketing collided or coincided with American interests. Ethiopia, Kenya and other African coffee giants elicit passing mention at best. "A marketing and economic history of the coffee industry in the U.S." or something like it would be more apt.
2. It was very hard to find central themes or takeaways from a sweeping narrative . I found myself struggling to summarize every chapter in my mind. The final chapter was excellent in terms of offering a macro- look at the future of coffee and its likely impacts but the rest of the book is essentially stream-of-consciousness. Not a bad thing necessarily but something to be aware of.
3. This book could have used some more brutal editing. Forcing central themes and tighter academic style writing would have cut the intimidating length by 25%. Of course, that style of writing would have cut by review length by 50%! :-)
Still a recommended read for lovers and haters of the brew alike.
August 14, 2016
Years ago, I'd read a book called The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen, which functioned as a combination travelogue/history of coffee throughout the world, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The author traveled throughout Africa and the Middle East meeting unsavory characters and having memorable misadventures (at one point finding himself an art smuggler) while retracing the path coffee took from Eastern Africa through Yemen and the Ottoman Empire through Europe and into the New World.
I'd worried when I picked up this book, a much more well known work that is often seen as the definitive take on coffee, that it would be redundant; however, the focus is so different that there's very little repetition from Allen's book to this one. In this book, Pendergrast concerns himself primarily with coffee's impact in the United States. There's a little bit about Europe and Africa and a paragraph here and there referring to Asia--including the interesting fact that Vietnam is the world's second leading producer of robusta.
All told, this is more of a book about big business and economics, in particular the market manipulation in Latin America and the influence of various right-wing and left-wing dictatorships. The book also deals with the rise of the familiar brands: Maxwell House, Folgers, and of course Starbucks. All in all, I preferred Allen's book, but this one is more comprehensive, more exhaustively researched and more suitable as the one book to read about the history of coffee.
I'd worried when I picked up this book, a much more well known work that is often seen as the definitive take on coffee, that it would be redundant; however, the focus is so different that there's very little repetition from Allen's book to this one. In this book, Pendergrast concerns himself primarily with coffee's impact in the United States. There's a little bit about Europe and Africa and a paragraph here and there referring to Asia--including the interesting fact that Vietnam is the world's second leading producer of robusta.
All told, this is more of a book about big business and economics, in particular the market manipulation in Latin America and the influence of various right-wing and left-wing dictatorships. The book also deals with the rise of the familiar brands: Maxwell House, Folgers, and of course Starbucks. All in all, I preferred Allen's book, but this one is more comprehensive, more exhaustively researched and more suitable as the one book to read about the history of coffee.
April 28, 2014
I rarely rated a book less than three stars but I made an exception for this book. The title, 'Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed our World', is totally misleading, not to say deceiving. It is better phrased as 'A History of Cheap Brands of Coffee in the United States of America'. I read this book with the expectation that coffee, as a healthily addictive drink, can unite people of different nationalities with its unique culture. What Mark Pendergrast wrote instead was the coffee of history within America. Perhaps it was not his fault after all but the faults of the hopeless publisher making a totally misplaced title.
May 3, 2022
I had to read this for a world civilizations class so there’s that. This was a book that covered two topics I care absolutely nothing about, coffee and business. But it was still interesting and bearable. For anyone who loves coffee or business this is a must read. There’s so much corruption and unfair treatment towards people in the coffee industry across history, so I think it would be beneficial for any coffee shop owner to read this book. Overall, interesting book, just not my cup of [coffee].
August 23, 2008
If you want an in depth, detailed look at the history of coffee, this is a great book to pick up. From its discovery in Africa, to how it became the second largest export in the world (with oil being the first); from plantation to cup, and everything in between, this book covers it all. It even describes the evolution of brewing techniques and instant coffees, weaving the history of coffee in with the history of world.
I work in the coffee industry as mostly a barista. I picked up this book in the hopes to learn a bit more about what I was serving to people, and possibly get a nice foundation for if I'm ever able to break into writing for CoffeeHouse Digest. I must admit, I got a lot more than I expected with this book. Did you know that in early history of the middle east, a woman could initiate a divorce, if her husband did not have enough coffee in the household? I certainly didn't.
My one complaint, and the reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5, is that this book is very America Centric. Not just the U.S., but South America as well. That is not to say that id doesn't cover the rest of the world. It does, and in great detail. But the concentration is on the U.S. and Central/South America. Here's an example: somewhere in the first half of the book, the author spends a great deal of time speaking of pre-depression era coffee consumption in the U.S., then mentions in the last paragraph of the section how Germany at that time was actually the leader in coffee drinking countries. But he doesn't spend nearly the amount of time on that as he does in the U.S.
Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the history of coffee in other countries, so maybe there isn't that much to tell. However, given how intricate and complex the story of coffee is in the States, my impression is that a lot was missing in Pendergrast's account of coffee in other parts of the world. Other than that one tiny complaint - and believe me, the wonderfulness of the book (and its sizable length) do make the complaint a tiny one - I thought this was a great and informative read.
I work in the coffee industry as mostly a barista. I picked up this book in the hopes to learn a bit more about what I was serving to people, and possibly get a nice foundation for if I'm ever able to break into writing for CoffeeHouse Digest. I must admit, I got a lot more than I expected with this book. Did you know that in early history of the middle east, a woman could initiate a divorce, if her husband did not have enough coffee in the household? I certainly didn't.
My one complaint, and the reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5, is that this book is very America Centric. Not just the U.S., but South America as well. That is not to say that id doesn't cover the rest of the world. It does, and in great detail. But the concentration is on the U.S. and Central/South America. Here's an example: somewhere in the first half of the book, the author spends a great deal of time speaking of pre-depression era coffee consumption in the U.S., then mentions in the last paragraph of the section how Germany at that time was actually the leader in coffee drinking countries. But he doesn't spend nearly the amount of time on that as he does in the U.S.
Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the history of coffee in other countries, so maybe there isn't that much to tell. However, given how intricate and complex the story of coffee is in the States, my impression is that a lot was missing in Pendergrast's account of coffee in other parts of the world. Other than that one tiny complaint - and believe me, the wonderfulness of the book (and its sizable length) do make the complaint a tiny one - I thought this was a great and informative read.
April 1, 2023
I chose this as the text for my first several semesters of teaching about coffee. I learned about it when giving one of my first presentations about coffee -- a teacher in the audience told me that her uncle had written a book about coffee. Before I knew it, he was on our campus to give a public lecture that also served as part of the orientation program for my first coffee travel course. A couple years later he held an informal author talk when I took my students to visit a coffee roastery that happened to be located near his home in Vermont.
I eventually decided that it included more information than I could fully cover in the courses as I was presenting them, but I continue to recommend this book as an important source for coffee research. His grasp of the historical geography of coffee as a crop and an industry is comprehensive. Pendergrast is meticulous in his scholarship -- correcting one common coffee myth in the second edition -- and provides rich detail of many of the places, people, and companies that have been involved in coffee over the past 15 centuries.
April 2023 Addendum
Shortly after I mentioned the "coffee myth" in my original review, I wrote about it at some length on my blog: https://www.environmentalgeography.net/2017/06/second-coffee-myth-busted.html.
I eventually decided that it included more information than I could fully cover in the courses as I was presenting them, but I continue to recommend this book as an important source for coffee research. His grasp of the historical geography of coffee as a crop and an industry is comprehensive. Pendergrast is meticulous in his scholarship -- correcting one common coffee myth in the second edition -- and provides rich detail of many of the places, people, and companies that have been involved in coffee over the past 15 centuries.
April 2023 Addendum
Shortly after I mentioned the "coffee myth" in my original review, I wrote about it at some length on my blog: https://www.environmentalgeography.net/2017/06/second-coffee-myth-busted.html.
March 25, 2021
Maybe more 3.5, but I really like coffee. Comprehensive account of coffee, particularly how it's affected Latin America, US trade relations, and commodity markets. Pretty long and really would be better with more aggressive editing (I fell asleep listening to it ~10 nights in a row...), but there's good historical content, and it doesn't feel like the author is making unsupported claims. It's interesting how closely coffee was tied to a lot of significant historical events, especially in Central America, although as the major export commodity that makes sense. Extra interesting for me as I'm considering getting enough land (in Puerto Rico) to do a hobby farm or specialty low-volume farm myself, with coffee as one of the crops.
April 27, 2010
I confess that I tried; I tried to sit ddown and read the history of coffee, and it was just too much. Too much history, and too much information to absorb. It's a wonderful book, but overwhelming.
October 24, 2012
Uncommon Grounds is exactly what I was looking for. I had finished a similar commodity book (Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky) and was blown away. I was hoping for the same experience and am happy to say that I found something similar. The author goes into quite a lot of detail about the origin, trade, branding and questionable medicinal qualities of coffee in a relatively entertaining fashion. It gets a little bogged down at times but overall, Pendergrast succinctly digests coffee's history in a way that is not, for the most part, overwhelmingly dragged down by minutia.
It's not an amazing book, but for coffee drinkers who are curious about the history and trade of coffee, it is most certainly enlightening. I would have preferred the final chapter to have been the first chapter, and to have more said on the science behind the substances in coffee, but otherwise, it's a good read. A example of the author's start-to-finish style of writing might help to entice possible readers:
"At the Smithsonian conference, I heard a grower ask, “We are shocked and confused that specialty roasters sell our coffee for $8 or $10, when we only receive a little over a dollar a pound. How is that just?” While their U.S. colleagues made sympathetic noises, no one really answered the question.
Later, a specialty coffee professional gave me an answer. Let us say he pays $2 a pound for Colombian Supremo green beans (and remember that this price can fluctuate). Add 11 cents for freight-in, storage, and handling, 46 cents for the 18 percent weight loss during roasting, 19 cents a pound for roasting, 35 cents to hand-pack in five-pound valve bags for wholesale shipments, and 40 cents for shipping costs. That totals $3.51. Add $2.05 to cover overhead for the roaster/distributor (everything from mortgages and machinery loans to sales commissions, repairs, and rubbish removal) and profit, and it costs $5.56 to deliver roasted coffee to a specialty retailer. Depending on the retailer’s size, rent, and other overhead costs, he or she must then charge between $9.50 and $11.50 a pound to make a reasonable profit.
If the roasted beans go to a coffeehouse outlet, the proprietor converts the $5.56 per pound beans into a twelve-ounce regular coffee at $1.75 or cappuccino or latte for $2.50 or more. If the proprietor gets twenty-four servings to the pound, that translates to a whopping $70 a pound for regular filter coffee, and $82.50 a pound for thirty-three lattes, minus the cost of the milk, stirrer, sweetener, and stale discarded coffee. On the other hand, coffeehouse owners have to pay astronomical rents, shell out $18,000 for a top-of-the line espresso machine, and allow customers to linger for long, philosophical conversations or solitary reading over their single cup of coffee."
It's not an amazing book, but for coffee drinkers who are curious about the history and trade of coffee, it is most certainly enlightening. I would have preferred the final chapter to have been the first chapter, and to have more said on the science behind the substances in coffee, but otherwise, it's a good read. A example of the author's start-to-finish style of writing might help to entice possible readers:
"At the Smithsonian conference, I heard a grower ask, “We are shocked and confused that specialty roasters sell our coffee for $8 or $10, when we only receive a little over a dollar a pound. How is that just?” While their U.S. colleagues made sympathetic noises, no one really answered the question.
Later, a specialty coffee professional gave me an answer. Let us say he pays $2 a pound for Colombian Supremo green beans (and remember that this price can fluctuate). Add 11 cents for freight-in, storage, and handling, 46 cents for the 18 percent weight loss during roasting, 19 cents a pound for roasting, 35 cents to hand-pack in five-pound valve bags for wholesale shipments, and 40 cents for shipping costs. That totals $3.51. Add $2.05 to cover overhead for the roaster/distributor (everything from mortgages and machinery loans to sales commissions, repairs, and rubbish removal) and profit, and it costs $5.56 to deliver roasted coffee to a specialty retailer. Depending on the retailer’s size, rent, and other overhead costs, he or she must then charge between $9.50 and $11.50 a pound to make a reasonable profit.
If the roasted beans go to a coffeehouse outlet, the proprietor converts the $5.56 per pound beans into a twelve-ounce regular coffee at $1.75 or cappuccino or latte for $2.50 or more. If the proprietor gets twenty-four servings to the pound, that translates to a whopping $70 a pound for regular filter coffee, and $82.50 a pound for thirty-three lattes, minus the cost of the milk, stirrer, sweetener, and stale discarded coffee. On the other hand, coffeehouse owners have to pay astronomical rents, shell out $18,000 for a top-of-the line espresso machine, and allow customers to linger for long, philosophical conversations or solitary reading over their single cup of coffee."
December 21, 2012
Very interesting history of coffee with a good awareness of the social inequality of the coffee economy. I wasn't very impressed with the short "how to brew the perfect cup of coffee" section at the end, and the wasn't much info on brewing in general. But as a history book it was a great read.
March 31, 2015
I just could not get in to this book. Abandoned at 50%.
February 3, 2016
More accurate title of this book could be USA Imperialistic Arrogance Told Over a Cup of Coffee. The "world" according to Pendergrast, stops where the US borders ends. This is a serious flaw for a book with such a pretentious title. More than 2/3 of the planet is blatantly ignored, and even giant countries such as Canada and Russia (or SSSR) are referenced in two sentiences each respectfully.
The author gives a good overview of the aggressive and in most cases, highly morally doubtful US business and political practices. His research offers a good sociological introduction to the world of mindless consumerism brought to us by the almighty corporations, but still, it cannot be taken seriously since it simply does not deliver what it promises.
I give it a three-star review mostly because the author is a skilful writer and the book is a page-turner. However, this fact alone is enough to make me feel cheated since the subject of his research is not concluded as deeply or as thoroughly as it should be.
The author gives a good overview of the aggressive and in most cases, highly morally doubtful US business and political practices. His research offers a good sociological introduction to the world of mindless consumerism brought to us by the almighty corporations, but still, it cannot be taken seriously since it simply does not deliver what it promises.
I give it a three-star review mostly because the author is a skilful writer and the book is a page-turner. However, this fact alone is enough to make me feel cheated since the subject of his research is not concluded as deeply or as thoroughly as it should be.
May 19, 2013
This book deserves 3.5 stars- just can't rate it that way. After being in the airport in Addis Abba Ethiopia and seeing a woman sell the best tasting cup of coffee ever drank, and knowing that coffee began in the area, this book recommended by NPR became a MUST read. It's got the beginnings, the spread of coffee around the world, the change in the US from bulk selling to packaged sales. One finds out about how the various companies grew from entrepreneurs to coffee barons and then morphed into the giants of the food industry.
A mess of politics then goes on and this is where I felt bogged down and thought I would never get on with the book. It was correct and detailed- more than I wanted. But in the long run, after skipping that part, and again returning to more general info, it got interesting again.
It will make a good gift for a coffee lover who has Italian coffee machine and cares about buying roasts that appeal.
A mess of politics then goes on and this is where I felt bogged down and thought I would never get on with the book. It was correct and detailed- more than I wanted. But in the long run, after skipping that part, and again returning to more general info, it got interesting again.
It will make a good gift for a coffee lover who has Italian coffee machine and cares about buying roasts that appeal.
December 19, 2023
I needed an ungodly amount of coffee just to power through this book. This is written for highly caffeinated agronomists with a flare for historical drama and no one else.
August 28, 2020
The second-most traded commodity in the world, behind only petroleum, Coffee has become a bastion of the modern diet. Believed to have originated in Ethiopia, coffee was used in the Middle East in the 16th century to aid attentiveness.
I believe having read somewhere that Kaldi, a lonely goat herder in ninth-century Ethiopia, discovered the revitalizing and bracing upshots of coffee when he saw his goats getting excited after eating some berries from a tree. Kaldi told the abbot of the local monastery about this and the abbot came up with the design of drying and boiling the berries to make a beverage.
He threw the berries into the fire, whence the instantly recognizable fragrance of what we now know as coffee glided through the night air. The now roasted beans were raked from the embers, ground up and dissolved in hot water: so was made the world’s first cup of coffee. The abbot and his monks found that the beverage kept them awake for hours at a time – just the thing for men devoted to long hours of prayer. Word spread, and so did the hot drink, even as far afield as the Arabian Peninsula.
Coffee, today, is big business, one of the world’s most valuable agricultural commodities, providing the largest jolt of the world’s most widely taken psychoactive drug. From its original African home, coffee propagation has spread in a girdle around the globe, taking over whole plains and mountainsides between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
In the form of a hot infusion of its ground, roasted seeds, coffee is consumed for its bittersweet bouquet, its mind-racing jump start, and social bonding. And one must not forget that Coffee, like alcohol, has had a long history of prohibition, attracting fear and suspicion and religious disquiet and hypocrisy. Had the zealots (of all religions) got their way then there would not be very many coffee houses open today.
Apart from the historical nunances and cultural entanglements, the author reminds us that Coffee provides a livelihood (of sorts) for some 125 million human beings. It is an amazingly labour-intensive crop. Calloused palms plant the seeds, nurse the seedlings under a shade canopy, transplant them to mountainside ranks, prune and fertilize, spray for pests, water, reap, and lug two hundred-pound bags of coffee cherries. Labourers control the complicated process of removing the valuable bean from its covering of pulp and mucilage. Then the beans must be spread to dry for several days (or heated in drums), the parchment and silver skin removed, and the resulting green beans bagged for shipment, roasting, grinding, and brewing around the world.
This book was a path-breaker of sorts. The author in his preface to the second edition of the book writes: ‘Uncommon Grounds seems to have spawned a mini-industry of coffee books, documentaries, and interest in coffee’s social, environmental, and economic impact. Too many books have come out to mention them all, but I have added some to the “Notes on Sources” section at the end of the book. Most notable are Majka Burhardt’s Coffee: Authentic Ethiopia (2010); Michaele Weissman’s God in a Cup (2008); Daniel Jaffe’s Brewing Justice (2007); Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History (2004); John Talbot’s Grounds for Agreement (2004); and Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer’s The World of Caffeine (2001).’
If you love coffee, and are interested in its history, read this book.
I believe having read somewhere that Kaldi, a lonely goat herder in ninth-century Ethiopia, discovered the revitalizing and bracing upshots of coffee when he saw his goats getting excited after eating some berries from a tree. Kaldi told the abbot of the local monastery about this and the abbot came up with the design of drying and boiling the berries to make a beverage.
He threw the berries into the fire, whence the instantly recognizable fragrance of what we now know as coffee glided through the night air. The now roasted beans were raked from the embers, ground up and dissolved in hot water: so was made the world’s first cup of coffee. The abbot and his monks found that the beverage kept them awake for hours at a time – just the thing for men devoted to long hours of prayer. Word spread, and so did the hot drink, even as far afield as the Arabian Peninsula.
Coffee, today, is big business, one of the world’s most valuable agricultural commodities, providing the largest jolt of the world’s most widely taken psychoactive drug. From its original African home, coffee propagation has spread in a girdle around the globe, taking over whole plains and mountainsides between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
In the form of a hot infusion of its ground, roasted seeds, coffee is consumed for its bittersweet bouquet, its mind-racing jump start, and social bonding. And one must not forget that Coffee, like alcohol, has had a long history of prohibition, attracting fear and suspicion and religious disquiet and hypocrisy. Had the zealots (of all religions) got their way then there would not be very many coffee houses open today.
Apart from the historical nunances and cultural entanglements, the author reminds us that Coffee provides a livelihood (of sorts) for some 125 million human beings. It is an amazingly labour-intensive crop. Calloused palms plant the seeds, nurse the seedlings under a shade canopy, transplant them to mountainside ranks, prune and fertilize, spray for pests, water, reap, and lug two hundred-pound bags of coffee cherries. Labourers control the complicated process of removing the valuable bean from its covering of pulp and mucilage. Then the beans must be spread to dry for several days (or heated in drums), the parchment and silver skin removed, and the resulting green beans bagged for shipment, roasting, grinding, and brewing around the world.
This book was a path-breaker of sorts. The author in his preface to the second edition of the book writes: ‘Uncommon Grounds seems to have spawned a mini-industry of coffee books, documentaries, and interest in coffee’s social, environmental, and economic impact. Too many books have come out to mention them all, but I have added some to the “Notes on Sources” section at the end of the book. Most notable are Majka Burhardt’s Coffee: Authentic Ethiopia (2010); Michaele Weissman’s God in a Cup (2008); Daniel Jaffe’s Brewing Justice (2007); Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History (2004); John Talbot’s Grounds for Agreement (2004); and Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer’s The World of Caffeine (2001).’
If you love coffee, and are interested in its history, read this book.
April 14, 2024
Very in depth look at coffee through an anthropological lens. I had no idea that so much of the idea of coffee is so intrinsically tied to advertising!! It was also interesting to learn the made up business aspects of coffee as well as the politics of coffee. All these things were very vague ideas to me before reading this book. I mean I personally usually drink orange juice or water with breakfast, so I don't really have a horse in this race. I can see how Pendergrast moved from his book about Coca-Cola to writing one on coffee. Not only this but Pendergrast has a great voice in his writing that is humorous and light in a way that really helps break up the overall density of the information communicated. Very cool read if you like coffee or just have an interest in how everyday items become everyday items. A great study in an unsuspecting plant's journey through the entire history of American capitalism and everything before.
April 3, 2023
I love coffee!! But I didn’t LOVE this book! I give the author credit since I mean it’s a book on coffee and its history which to some would be boring. It felt like about after a quarter of the way through, the editing stopped. Way too many misspelled words or sentences missing words. Which in fact, made this a terrible read. Great subject matter and filled with history, but fire the editor! I’ve finished it. Now I need a drink, and I don’t mean coffee!
February 11, 2019
We listened to this in the car and skipped like half of it because he spent so much time talking about inane details of coffee sellers and marketing. His stuff about coffee culture, production, and politics was interesting though.
December 30, 2023
A fantastic and engaging history of coffee. Enjoyed this far more than I expected. Highly recommend this for coffee snobs and history nerds alike.
April 9, 2022
This book was long and full of dates and names and random facts. Great to read if you are selling coffee for a living and need random tidbits to sound smarter than you really are. I got two raises during the time I was reading this book, 5 starts.
July 15, 2020
People’s opinions of Pendergrast’s book seem analogous to the ones swirling around coffee - diverse and complex. I took a sneak peak at some of the reviews on Goodreads. I don’t always do that before I write my own review so that mine thoughts won’t be tainted. For whatever reason I chose to sneak peak this book. The first several reviews shared various complaints about the quality, focus, and opinions of the author in the text. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t since we are talking about coffee.
First and foremost, this is a history of coffee. As far as a detailed, compelling history, I was satisfied. When there was more detail than I wanted, I switched to meta reading. The scope was fairly comprehensive, and since I like coffee and history, I found it interesting. A bonus benefit was a refresher on many aspects of world history as coffee history weaves its way through it.
One surprise for me was the glimpses I got into how women in American were treated (demeaned) in past generations. These were just mere references, and I don’t know how representative and substantive they were. There must have been enough of this type of treatment for large scale ads to be run like they were. I hope I can learn more.
A bigger crisis is how whole families were treated on coffee plantations for generations. I can appreciate fair trade coffee now much more than I did before. However, I believe I have a lot more to learn on this.
The one thing I wanted more from the book which isn’t necessarily within its scope is a deeper analysis of the coffees on the market today and the matrix of the types of beans and roasting practices. Reading the book through does give a pretty good foundation, and Mark does say how to brew the perfect cup of coffee at the end of the book. Also at the end of the book is an excellent bibliographic essay with lots of further reading.
First and foremost, this is a history of coffee. As far as a detailed, compelling history, I was satisfied. When there was more detail than I wanted, I switched to meta reading. The scope was fairly comprehensive, and since I like coffee and history, I found it interesting. A bonus benefit was a refresher on many aspects of world history as coffee history weaves its way through it.
One surprise for me was the glimpses I got into how women in American were treated (demeaned) in past generations. These were just mere references, and I don’t know how representative and substantive they were. There must have been enough of this type of treatment for large scale ads to be run like they were. I hope I can learn more.
A bigger crisis is how whole families were treated on coffee plantations for generations. I can appreciate fair trade coffee now much more than I did before. However, I believe I have a lot more to learn on this.
The one thing I wanted more from the book which isn’t necessarily within its scope is a deeper analysis of the coffees on the market today and the matrix of the types of beans and roasting practices. Reading the book through does give a pretty good foundation, and Mark does say how to brew the perfect cup of coffee at the end of the book. Also at the end of the book is an excellent bibliographic essay with lots of further reading.
June 23, 2019
This is a lavishly detailed book that suffers from poor to nonexistent organization. (As the acknowledgments credit an editor for pruning "over a third of the original manuscript", I can't imagine what this tome was like originally.) This book would benefit from a lot more editing. Besides following a basic timeline of the production and consumption of coffee over the years, focusing on the mid-1800's to the present, there is zero narrative thread. Each subheading leaps between subjects haphazardly. The entire book reads like a collection of chronologically arranged index cards. It was a struggle to slog through.
Despite this, the information is still fascinating. It covers the social and political ramifications of the coffee crop in Latin America, the rise and fall of brands as tastes in America developed and changed, the impact of advertising, the roll of speculation, industry infighting, climate change... It sounds like an exhaustive list, but even though the subtitle promises "The History of Coffee and How it Transformed the World", his research primarily focuses on America. Asides about other countries are brief and perfunctory.
All in all, a flawed but educational read.
Notes
The strongest blast against the London coffeehouses came from women, who unlike their Continental counterparts were excluded from their all-male society (unless they were the proprietors). In 1674 The Women’s Petition Against Coffee complained, “We find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour… Never did Men wear greater Breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle whatsoever.” This condition was all due to “the Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called Coffee, which… has so Ennucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind gallants… They come from it with nothing moist but their snotty Noses, nothing stiffe but their Joints, nor standing but their Ears.”
The Women’s Petition revealed that a typical male day involved spending the morning in a tavern “till every one of them is as Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the Coffee-house to drink themselves sober.” Then they were off to the tavern again, only to “stagger back to Soberize themselves with Coffee.” In response, the men defended their beverage. Far from rendering them impotent, “[coffee] makes the erection more Vigorous, the Ejaculation more full, adds a spiritualescency to the Sperme.” (Pg. 13)
Most coffee roasters struggled to understand new marking methods. They observed, for instance, that milk sales went up at a Boston sales counter when the drink was poured by a sexy young woman… Yet few coffee ads attempted any form of sex appeal for the traditional, dignified beverage. One that did, albeit in an awkward, school-boyish fashion, was widely criticized. A 1912 ad for Satisfaction Coffee depicted a can with female legs fleeing from a pursuing male. “Worth running after any time,” read the text. “Always pure. Never sold in bulk.” This ad was, noted a trade journal, “in questionable taste.” (Pg. 115)
Five year later Dr. Hugo Muensterberg, a Harvard psychology professor, lectured on the topic “Applying Psychology to Business.” He made extraordinary—and frightening—claims. “Business men will eventually realize that customers are merely bundles of mental states and that the mind is a mechanism that we can affect with the same exactitude with which we control a machine in a factory.” (Pg. 115-116)
Resor quoted the philosopher-psychologist William James: “Our judgments concerning the worth of things, big or little, depend on the feelings the things arouse in use.” (Pg. 128)
A surprising number of early copywriters with a religious background were attracted to the secular advertising pulpit. “Business had had become almost the national religion of America,” Frederick Lewis Allen observed in Only Yesterday, his classic book on the twenties. “So frequent was the use of the Bible to point the lessons of business and of business to point the lessons of the Bible that it was sometimes difficult to determine which was supposed to gain the most from the association.”
*John Watson was not the only one who made such observations. In 1922 the novelist Sinclair Lewis created George Babbitt, the quintessential American consumer for whom “standard advertised wares… were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom.” Every morning the insecure Babbit “gulped a cup of coffee in the hope of pacifying his stomach and his soul.” (Pg. 156)
“Coffee may be advertised just as coffee—a drink which pleases the palate,” wrote James Webb Young in a company memo. “[But] we know that beauty, romance and social prestige mean more than almost anything to a woman,” he continued. “The outstanding modern hotels are considered absolute arbiters of correct social usage, particularly with regards to foods.” (Pg. 157)
The life of the Depression-era housewife clearly was not easy. On a popular 1932 radio show one commentator advised housewives to “keep a good big supply of coffee in the pantry. You'll find it something to cling to… Otherwise, the day will surely come when you'll sit down in the middle of the kitchen floor and scream and yell at the ghastly damnable futility of it all. (Pg. 186)
During the rationing period, poet Phyllis McGinley penned an eloquent lament in which she spoke of the “riches my life used to boast”:
Two cups of coffee to drink with my toast,
The dear morning coffee,
The soul-stirring coffee,
The plenteous coffee
I took with my toast.
(Pg. 204)
It also introduced the absurd slogan, “Flavor so unbeatable, it's reheatable!” (Pg.259)
“I couldn't understand why in the richest country in the world they were drinking such poor quality coffee.” The public didn't seem to care. “People drank ten cups of that stuff a day. You knew it had to be weak. If you drink ten cups of strong coffee, you'd be floating against the ceiling.” (pg. 266)
“Coffee has no nutritional value. For these peasants it is worth only as much as it can buy in food and clothing. And because it buys so little, it is a bitter brew, the taste of poverty and human suffering.” Penny Lernoux in The Nation. (Pg. 271)
Caffeine is one of the alkaloids: organic (carbon-containing) compounds built around rings of nitrogen atoms. Alkaloids are the pharmacologically active chemicals produced by many tropical plants. Because they have no winter to provide relief from predators, tropical plants have evolved sophisticated methods to protect themselves. In other words, caffeine is a natural pesticide. It is quite likely that plants contain caffeine because it affects the nervous system of most would-be consumers, discouraging them from eating it. Of course, that is precisely the attraction for the human animal. (Pg. 375)
Despite this, the information is still fascinating. It covers the social and political ramifications of the coffee crop in Latin America, the rise and fall of brands as tastes in America developed and changed, the impact of advertising, the roll of speculation, industry infighting, climate change... It sounds like an exhaustive list, but even though the subtitle promises "The History of Coffee and How it Transformed the World", his research primarily focuses on America. Asides about other countries are brief and perfunctory.
All in all, a flawed but educational read.
Notes
The strongest blast against the London coffeehouses came from women, who unlike their Continental counterparts were excluded from their all-male society (unless they were the proprietors). In 1674 The Women’s Petition Against Coffee complained, “We find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour… Never did Men wear greater Breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle whatsoever.” This condition was all due to “the Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called Coffee, which… has so Ennucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind gallants… They come from it with nothing moist but their snotty Noses, nothing stiffe but their Joints, nor standing but their Ears.”
The Women’s Petition revealed that a typical male day involved spending the morning in a tavern “till every one of them is as Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the Coffee-house to drink themselves sober.” Then they were off to the tavern again, only to “stagger back to Soberize themselves with Coffee.” In response, the men defended their beverage. Far from rendering them impotent, “[coffee] makes the erection more Vigorous, the Ejaculation more full, adds a spiritualescency to the Sperme.” (Pg. 13)
Most coffee roasters struggled to understand new marking methods. They observed, for instance, that milk sales went up at a Boston sales counter when the drink was poured by a sexy young woman… Yet few coffee ads attempted any form of sex appeal for the traditional, dignified beverage. One that did, albeit in an awkward, school-boyish fashion, was widely criticized. A 1912 ad for Satisfaction Coffee depicted a can with female legs fleeing from a pursuing male. “Worth running after any time,” read the text. “Always pure. Never sold in bulk.” This ad was, noted a trade journal, “in questionable taste.” (Pg. 115)
Five year later Dr. Hugo Muensterberg, a Harvard psychology professor, lectured on the topic “Applying Psychology to Business.” He made extraordinary—and frightening—claims. “Business men will eventually realize that customers are merely bundles of mental states and that the mind is a mechanism that we can affect with the same exactitude with which we control a machine in a factory.” (Pg. 115-116)
Resor quoted the philosopher-psychologist William James: “Our judgments concerning the worth of things, big or little, depend on the feelings the things arouse in use.” (Pg. 128)
A surprising number of early copywriters with a religious background were attracted to the secular advertising pulpit. “Business had had become almost the national religion of America,” Frederick Lewis Allen observed in Only Yesterday, his classic book on the twenties. “So frequent was the use of the Bible to point the lessons of business and of business to point the lessons of the Bible that it was sometimes difficult to determine which was supposed to gain the most from the association.”
*John Watson was not the only one who made such observations. In 1922 the novelist Sinclair Lewis created George Babbitt, the quintessential American consumer for whom “standard advertised wares… were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom.” Every morning the insecure Babbit “gulped a cup of coffee in the hope of pacifying his stomach and his soul.” (Pg. 156)
“Coffee may be advertised just as coffee—a drink which pleases the palate,” wrote James Webb Young in a company memo. “[But] we know that beauty, romance and social prestige mean more than almost anything to a woman,” he continued. “The outstanding modern hotels are considered absolute arbiters of correct social usage, particularly with regards to foods.” (Pg. 157)
The life of the Depression-era housewife clearly was not easy. On a popular 1932 radio show one commentator advised housewives to “keep a good big supply of coffee in the pantry. You'll find it something to cling to… Otherwise, the day will surely come when you'll sit down in the middle of the kitchen floor and scream and yell at the ghastly damnable futility of it all. (Pg. 186)
During the rationing period, poet Phyllis McGinley penned an eloquent lament in which she spoke of the “riches my life used to boast”:
Two cups of coffee to drink with my toast,
The dear morning coffee,
The soul-stirring coffee,
The plenteous coffee
I took with my toast.
(Pg. 204)
It also introduced the absurd slogan, “Flavor so unbeatable, it's reheatable!” (Pg.259)
“I couldn't understand why in the richest country in the world they were drinking such poor quality coffee.” The public didn't seem to care. “People drank ten cups of that stuff a day. You knew it had to be weak. If you drink ten cups of strong coffee, you'd be floating against the ceiling.” (pg. 266)
“Coffee has no nutritional value. For these peasants it is worth only as much as it can buy in food and clothing. And because it buys so little, it is a bitter brew, the taste of poverty and human suffering.” Penny Lernoux in The Nation. (Pg. 271)
Caffeine is one of the alkaloids: organic (carbon-containing) compounds built around rings of nitrogen atoms. Alkaloids are the pharmacologically active chemicals produced by many tropical plants. Because they have no winter to provide relief from predators, tropical plants have evolved sophisticated methods to protect themselves. In other words, caffeine is a natural pesticide. It is quite likely that plants contain caffeine because it affects the nervous system of most would-be consumers, discouraging them from eating it. Of course, that is precisely the attraction for the human animal. (Pg. 375)
February 6, 2017
From the start of coffee up through the turn of the millennium, this book covers coffee broadly, mainly from an American (North, Central and South) perspective.
It goes into a lot of the economic history of coffee, how people in the US drank and prepared coffee (mostly terribly, until recently) and the economic impact on Central and South America.
Overall, a great book but a smidge dry here and there. There's a lot to learn in here, and a lot of fun bits of trivia. I read an older edition loaned to me by a friend that was written as Starbucks was really becoming globally dominant, and before the "innovation" of things like single-serving coffee machines and the hipster revolution that built upon the specialty revolution of the 1990's.
I'd definitely recommend this if you are someone who enjoys coffee at all.
It goes into a lot of the economic history of coffee, how people in the US drank and prepared coffee (mostly terribly, until recently) and the economic impact on Central and South America.
Overall, a great book but a smidge dry here and there. There's a lot to learn in here, and a lot of fun bits of trivia. I read an older edition loaned to me by a friend that was written as Starbucks was really becoming globally dominant, and before the "innovation" of things like single-serving coffee machines and the hipster revolution that built upon the specialty revolution of the 1990's.
I'd definitely recommend this if you are someone who enjoys coffee at all.
April 6, 2016
The book started out just fine with details of how coffee was found, the art of brewing perfected and goes on to describe the way it had affected lives of everyone.
The premise is an intriguing subject, but the dry TMI way of delivery, political correctness syndrome that the author seem to suffer from and the expectation I had going in ruined it all for me. I stopped this book half-way Perhaps if I were more familar with the coffee brands that the author talked about, these businesses' nitty gritty details of business competition, or if I were in coffee business, I would have probably appreciated it more (Though it won't make up for the fact that it's such a dry read)
The premise is an intriguing subject, but the dry TMI way of delivery, political correctness syndrome that the author seem to suffer from and the expectation I had going in ruined it all for me. I stopped this book half-way Perhaps if I were more familar with the coffee brands that the author talked about, these businesses' nitty gritty details of business competition, or if I were in coffee business, I would have probably appreciated it more (Though it won't make up for the fact that it's such a dry read)
December 15, 2008
This is actually a really good book for the genre- I'm never sure if the stars are supposed to correlate to my internal satisfaction level entirely, or if some space is to be made for differences in genre. In any case, this book is a history of the advertising and economics of coffee and goes a long way to explaining the relative poverty of South America's coffee producing countries. It's also a fairly snobby history of how a cuppa joe's been brewed in this country since its inception- snobby in a fun way.
October 19, 2018
I enjoyed the book overall but had expected more content on the science aspects of coffee. It is mostly a historical account and an interesting one for sure. The amount of research and the number of people interviewed by the author is impressive and we see the results of that in his broad coverage of coffee’s past. In today’s era of specialty coffee it is hard to imagine how the focus on a quality cup in the US was almost nonexistent before the 70s.
August 26, 2015
Baca sebab nak buat artikel. Banyak maklumat baru, info tentang pemerdagangan komoditi dan lain-lain info yang dilupakan sejurus selepas menutup buku. Yang menarik tentang buku ni ialah sejarah asal dan penyebaran kopi ke seluruh dunia, dan yang lagi menarik betapa biji kopi ni dah banyak menghasilkan catatan-catatan yang hebat dalam sejarah. Secara langsung atau tidak.
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