The Coffee Trader: A Novel [Paperback]

As they do now, traders gamble over the rise and fall of prices by buying and selling "puts" (an option giving one the right to sell at a later date for an artificially-high price) and "calls", (an option giving one the right to buy at a later date for an artificially-low price). Having once briefly dabbled in commodities trading, I am familiar with these strategies but never before imagined that they were anything other than 20th-century innovations.

Yet at one stage, one trader cynically advises another, "Go buy whale oil - not futures, but the thing itself. You may remember that the rest of the world still transacts business in that quaint manner."

The story specifically centers around the efforts of one trader in particular, Miguel Lienzo, who is introduced to a wondrous new fruit called "coffee" that when ground and brewed into drink imparts astonishing powers of reason and concentration and also has the power to preserve health, help digestion, and cure consumption and other maladies of the lung, as well as fluxes, jaundice and inflammation. One character in the novel naively crunches this "fruit" between her teeth before learning of its greater appeal as a brew.

Anticipating a tremendous demand for this new commodity, Miguel arrives at a plan to use his trading acumen to acquire a monopoly on it, all the while juggling business and personal affairs that threaten to undo him before his plan comes to fruition. These affairs include Miguel's need to resolve the conflict between the duty of honesty and fidelity that Jewish law imposes upon him with the harsh realities of life on the Exchange and outside the Exchange. They also include the Ma'amad, the self-regulatory Jewish body that actually adopts some of the Inquisition's methods for the greater good of the community.

As we follow Miguel's progress, we also note the presence of affable moneylender, Alonzo Alferonda, a victim of "cherem" (excommunication from the Jewish community at the hands of the Ma'amad), manipulating events behind the background - though the extent and the purpose of this manipulation is not revealed until the end.

Commodities trading in the year 1659 is essentially a product of rumor and the uses to which it is put, and in an environment unregulated by any sort of futures trading commission, false rumors are used to manipulate the market but are used sparingly lest their sources be regarded as completely untrustworthy for future purposes.

In such a world, the dividing line between what is real and what only APPEARS real is often sketchy, and this uncertainty is symbolic of a similar dichotomy of the events in Miguel's life. Who are his friends and who are his enemies? To what extent will his understanding of this be turned on its head by the end of the novel?

Does coffee really have a medicinal power to keep us alert and vital, especially now that it comes freeze-dried and/or packaged? Or do we drink it in the morning now out of force of habit? It has since become the definitive American drink and has been so for some time, but I'm actually not aware that it has produced a nation of alert and vital people.

Still, having read this novel, I know that I, for one, will never again regard my morning "cuppa" in quite the same way.