Rating: 4.0/5 Stars
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The author's greatest achievement here: capturing an informal tone that accommodates both exposés of slave-labor working conditions on Brazilian plantations and chatty ruminations on the "ever-worsening taste" of instant coffee.

It allows Pendergrast to pass on a tremendous amount of information without weighing down the prose. If you're unfamiliar with the story of how coffee became an international favorite, you'll be riveted throughout Pendergrast's chronicle, from coffee's appearance in the Middle East in the 15th century, to its wildfire spread through Europe in the 17th century, to its taking over the Brazilian economy in the 19th century.

In each European country, coffee went through the same stages: The aristocracy adopted it, the poor were allowed a taste of it, some politician banned it, another one removed the ban, scientists denounced it, others championed it, eventually everyone accepted it. Poor laborers used coffee to keep them going: "European lacemakers in the early nineteenth century lived almost exclusively on coffee and bread.

Because coffee was stimulating and warm, it provided an illusion of nutrition." The craze hit Britain briefly, but "the British had never learned to make coffee properly, and the milk they added to it was foul." (And thus were born the seeds of America's love affair with the black brew: Since the Brits drank tea -- remember the Boston Tea Party?

-- colonists drank coffee to spite their oppressors.)

Much of "Uncommon Grounds" deals with the business of coffee -- mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, strikes, lawsuits.

Pendergrast manages to make international trade disputes interesting (though many readers will find more than they wanted to know about business), and he never gets so lost in the machinations that he neglects either coffee drinkers or the field workers whose lives are caught up in the beverage.

He shows how the bean has affected the destiny of each nation that has tasted it; Brazil, for instance, came to coffee late and adopted it almost to the exclusion of every other crop, necessitating the importation of hundreds of thousands of slaves to help with cultivation.

The one-product economy was hostage to wild price swings and led to the destruction of huge expanses of rainforest and arable land.

"Coffee made modern Brazil, but at an enormous human and environmental cost," Pendergrast writes. Even today, he notes, some Latin American economies remain so dependent on coffee production that quality beans are virtually unavailable to consumers within the countries.

In Costa Rica, he writes, "I can testify that the regular brew is horrific."

There's a lot here about brand wars and innovative new products, including the story of cereal-based Postum, "America's favorite coffee substitute," and eccentric inventor C.W.

Post, who launched the modern advertising age with mountains of grammatically and scientifically faulty anti-coffee ads. We see the evolution of brewing products -- the percolator, Mr. Coffee, Melitta filters -- though only in recent years have decent methods become de rigeur among households and coffee shops.

Throughout the book, Pendergrast remains appalled by producers' failure to care about the taste of their coffee and, worse, consumers' failure to notice, even when -- as in during the long post-WWII price war -- manufacturers began using low-quality robusta beans and "instant coffee manufacturers managed to make their product even worse." He describes the now-legendary 1960 Maxwell House percolator ad as "a brilliant, evocative commercial, even though it celebrated a dreadful way to brew coffee." When distributors found ways to package coffee in ways less destructive to taste, "the American consumer continued to ruin the brew by boiling it."

And then, in the 1960s, arrived a crucial innovation: high-quality, fresh-roasted coffee, courtesy of frustrated entrepreneurs like Peet's in Berkeley and Zabar's in New York.

In 1971, the first Starbucks opened, and the rest of the story of coffee would rotate around the parasitic Seattle chain, which introduced the world to top-of-the-line coffee on every corner and invented a new, Italian-ish vocabulary for coffee drinks (doppia macchiato: a double espresso with a splash of milk).

"It's amazing to me that these terms have become part of the language," a former Starbucks executive tells Pendergrast. "A few of us sat in a conference room and just made them up." For many, the most valuable pages will be those titled "Appendix: How to Brew the Perfect Cup," a charmingly personal addendum ("When I began writing this book, I thought I appreciated good coffee.") that puts coffee in perspective -- so *this* is the reason for all the trouble!

Customer Reviews

6.	Everything you wanted to know--and More!!
	(Irvine, California United States) August 25, 1999 - 5.0/5 stars
	From a confirmed "Coffee Afficionada:" Thoroughly researched and well organized. There are even illustrations! If you drink coffee (even decaff) you'll want to read this book.I've enjoyed the taste of coffee since I was a little child, thanks to my Mom.
Current Review
7.	A definitive history & a great read
	(central New Jersey) February 11, 2000 - 5.0/5 stars
	Sometimes I'm unsure how I've managed it, but I've gotten through more than three decades of life without once having tasted coffee. Mocha, sure, but never the stuff itself. It's particularly surprising considering that ... read full review
8.	Not a "caffe latte" history
	(Miami, Florida) March 24, 2002 - 5.0/5 stars
	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... read full review

Editorials

	From Publishers Weekly
	Caffeinated beverage enthusiast Pendergrast (For God, Country and Coca-Cola) approaches this history of the green bean with the zeal of an addict. His wide-ranging narrative takes readers from the legends about coffee's... read full editorial
	The New York Times Book Review, Betty Fussell
	With wit and humor, Pendergrast has served up a rich blend of anecdote, character study, market analysis and social history.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
	New Yorker, July 26, 1999
	"Pendergrast has taken on a huge subject.... This encyclopedic volume is the entertaining result." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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