Customer Reviews

Uncommon Grounds the History Of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

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The subtitle of this book is: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World. I thought I was getting into a book about the role of coffee in the waves and trends of world history.

However, Prendergast almost entirely ignores the rest of the world (while repeatedly remarking how Europeans drink more coffee than Americans) and writes, instead a literature review of coffee industry publications, going into tedious detail of the advertising wars between coffee companies in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Occasionally, the author finds himself remarking about how coffee consumption in the industrialized world helped institutionalize atrocious poverty in coffee-growing countries, but then eschews considered analysis in order to get back to the oh-so-enthralling decades-long battle between Maxwell House and Hills Brothers for market share.

Prendergast repeatedly refers to how Americans' taste for coffee is, objectively, poor - one feels he does this as compensation for what he knows is a weak narrative.

If you are looking for a book which considers the 'world' as 95% America and chapters full of quotes from fin de siecle coffee advertisements, you've found the right one. If you are looking for a careful anaylsis of how coffee has changed the world, you'll need to keep looking.

Resting next to your mouse or keyboard - at a safe distance! - your cuppa steams aromatically. The morning coffee, whether at home or work, is the "kick-starter" of many a person's day. For some, it must be a special flavour, brewed to taste, yet often mixed with sweeteners or cow juice, real or otherwise. For the rest, anything hot and caffeine-laced is sufficient. Yet almost none of us ask where that beverage came from, why we drink it and why North Americans stick with coffee and others with tea. Mark Pendergrast asked, and asked some more and in many places. The result is this captivating book relating the history of our favourite beverage. It must be important if we write songs about it.

Opening by relating the Ethiopian myth of the goat-herd wanting to learn why his charges danced about in the bush, Pendergrast quickly traces the spread of coffee elsewhere. Coffee houses, beginning long ago, became quickly popular as gathering places. News and gossip were swopped over steaming cups. Patrons didn't exactly dance about as the goats did, but there must have been something more than just lounging about. The coffee house, viewed as a den of vice or worse, sedition, has been banned by various insecure rulers. Charles II of England, fearful his reign might go the way of his father's, tried to shut them down. He was correct, since the howl of protest might have generated another rebellion. The king withdrew the ban.

While coffee houses remained in place, some becoming gloriously decorated institutions, it was the home market that enlarged the role of coffee. Pendergrast tracks that shift with a colourful history of coffee's economic growth in the Western Hemisphere. As tea was consumed in Britain in a form of support for the East India Company, so did coffee rise as part of North American patriotic fervour. The nascent United States took up coffee with alacrity, the habit made easier by the proximity of the growing nations. The author notes that once coffee took root in Brazil, that nation became the backbone of the coffee industry.

Coffee's status as a cash crop, however, made it vulnerable to numerous forces - not the least weather. Grown at various elevations, but rarely on environmentally stable plains, coffee is subject to storms and frosts. Like grape vines, coffee is also vulnerable to a virus infestation. Prices rise and fall in a highly unpredictable market. Pendergrast notes how at the beginning of the 20th Century, the US penchant for cheap coffee led the government to make early attempts at meddling with Brazil's domestic economy. It was easy to claim Brazil's growers and wholesalers were "fixing" prices by storing millions of bags in warehouses, when their real intention was price stablilisation.

Pendergrast traces the growth of this industry with a fine flair for detail. Price shifts, marketing techniques, changes in tastes and the growth of dealers from small shops to national chains are all covered well. While there are many names and control shifts about in various locations, the author keeps us with him as he recounts the interactions. There is little technical to distract or delay the reader - he keeps the chemistry of coffee tucked away in a final chapter. To reach that point, however, the reader is guided through the founding and expansion of such names as Folger's, Hills Brothers and A&P. It's not all pleasant reading, of course. We must pause to cope with the palate-insulting phenomenon of "instant" coffee [you don't actually drink that stuff, do you?]. There are a few unpleasant people to meet. However, we also learn that with home-served coffee being served by sometimes abused housewives, some enterprising women entered the coffee trade arena. Some of these did so well they are legends in the industry.

This is an excellent book on a "hidden" topic. To understand why coffee prices shift and wobble, why this is the second most valuable resource in the world, why one brand is a delight to drink while another goes down the drain after the first taste, this is the place to find out. While you're ordering your copy, i'll just nip off to the kitchen for another cuppa . . . [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Everything you ever wanted to know about coffee. Most of the book makes for very slow reading, but the information is interesting and well worth the price.

This informative book is truly a joy to read, and any coffee drinker (serious coffee drinker, anyways) would benefit from this work. It offers an enlightening insight into the incredible coffee economy and outlines the disproportionate balance of profit that is a result from this inconspicuous plant. Not focused simply on the drink itself, Pendergrast writes of those this commodity impacts. Look for more than amusing tales of the coffee world and trite chapters on how to best brew the beans; this book is for those who are seriously interested in their favorite drink or who are curious about the history of a world commodity that has shaped both our economic and natural environment.

Ok, I admitt that if you do know about coffee you'll probably find it somewhat incomplete, specially in the terms of how to get a great cup of it. However, what makes this book great is the fact that it clearly states the way coffee had an influence in the world and how coffee was influenced by different historical events. This book is not about coffee, but as the title states, it is about the influence of masses and advertizing over a product, as well as the influence of a product in the shaping of society.
This book won't specify a lot about the plant or the drink in itself, but rather as it was brought to it's consumers and how separated is the origin from the end user of an agricultural product. It will help you understand more about economics than about coffee, yet it is not a bad book. If you like to know how different products or scientifical theories influenced the world and helped shape society, then this is a must read. If you want to know a lot about coffee and all of it's subtleties, then, this is not your book.

This is a great book that details the origins of coffee from 6th century Ethiopia to today's Starbucks. On many levels this book succeeds. It has a lot of coffee trivia that is both amusing and thoughtprovoking, it shows how coffee gained its relevance in today's society, and lastly it puts the social and political aspects of coffee under a microscope.

For 11 years I have been a futures and commodities investor, broker, and author. One of my favorite futures commodities is coffee. This book has added to my knowledge base by 10 times. I feel I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of java and in the long run I suspect that this will improve my investments in coffee futures. My hat is off to the author. Congrats on a fine book.

Although critically acclaimed, this book was not exactly what I was seeking. It gives the history of the US mass market coffee companies in excruciating detail, but as a coffee afficianado, I think I know more about coffee itself and how to prepare it well than does the author.

If you are interested in the down and dirty history of Folgers, of Chock Full of Nuts, of Hills Brothers, than this is your book. If you are sincerely interested in fine coffee, and have attained a level of appreciation of same, this book will quickly become tedious.

What I don't get is how the average Folgers or Hills Brothers or what have you drinker would be sufficiently interested in Coffee Per se (being as they drink plonk) to spend the time and money on this book. The real coffee drinkers out there, the people who go to effort to get or make great coffee, are going to find this tretise dull and unbearable after page 150 or so.

A staple of our breakfast table, our breaks at work, after dinner, and for a pick me up all during the day coffee is something that we think about the cup in front of us, but rarely do we think of how we got here. Pendergast delves into this mix, taking us back to the coffee cradle of Ethopia and on up to the Starbucks wars of the present day. He has crafted a very readable and accessible story of the history of coffee, as an economic and social driving force. The reader is given a real overview of how this dark, sometimes bitter brew has woven itself into the fabric of our lives, from the match heated cups in the trenches of the World Wars to the lines forming outside your neighborhood coffee house today.

But Pendergast looks at both sides of the story - the consumers and the coffee companies, but also the suppliers and the lives of those who make their (meager) livelihood off of harvesting the coffee bean. He nicely contrasts the Americans up in arms because of coffee rising past $1 a pound, while that $1 is more than a day's wage for many of the coffee harvesters. Coffee does not just appear on the grocery shelf, or in our cup by magic, it takes many steps on teh way, and these have impact upon costs, and upon the lives of those doing the work.

While personally I think that the book slows down heavily in the final chapters, overall I found it kept me engaged, with broad topics broken down in short subjects helping to keep the focus and the players straight. Coffee has been the boon and the bane of society for the past few hundred years. I found that I also came away with a greater understanding of the types of coffee, and what to be looking for when I'm buying it to get a better quality. Arabica, Robusta, and others now mean something more to me, and that's the beauty of a book like this - the information you receive appears on so many levels. I tip my cup to Mr. Pendergast.

This book outlines the history of coffee with a focus on the industry as a whole. It's main focus is on the late 19th century to the present. I think it provides an excellent overview and history of the business. I found it very readable and quite interesting. It is not dry like you would expect a business history book to be. Pendergrast does a good job of sprinkling in tidbits of facts throughout the book without bogging down. He also illuminates some of the drama behind the early days of small roasters in America growing and consolidating. This book is not for people who want to learn how to make coffee (it does have a few pages in an appendix on this). It is purely about the history of the business with a focus on events during the 20th century. I disagree with some comments made about this book. This book does reveal how coffee has transformed several Latin American and African countries even to this day. It does not spend entire chapters on specific countries but rather surveys several countries and the impact the industry has had. I thought Pendegrast did a fairly good job at balancing the different perspectives of retailers, roasters, importers, and growers. He also sheds some light onto the origins of specialty coffee and the explosion of retailers such as Starbucks. Some have argued this book is leftist, others argue it does not adequately cover the exploitation of Latin America and Africa by the industry. I think the author does a fairly good job of portraying both views, perhaps with a bit of leaning left. Pendergrast reveals fascinating personalities such as C.W. Post the inventor of Postum and many other health cereals still produced today or Howard Schultz - without whom Starbucks would never have been the phenomenon it is, but rather a regional roaster and retailer at best.
I do agree with one reader's review - this is not a coffee table book. It is a history book - a history of the commodity we know as the coffee bean. Since it is such a book - expect it to read like a history book, a good, readable history book. It is not riveting, rather it is interesting.

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 you look elsewhere. This book is none of that. This book is pretty narrow in focus and limits itself to discussions on the history of coffee growing and the business end of the industry. Topics covered include trading, marketing and distribution, consumption patterns, the emergence of cafe's and big coffeehouses, and the social, environmental, and political issues in both the producing and consuming nations. As with so many recently published books this one suffers from a pop-culture sounding title which is deliberately eye-catching, but misleading with its grandiose claim. These titles work best with popular science books about arcane subjects that changed the world set in stories about eccentric heroes and villains. I enjoy those books but this is a different book. This serious work is more referrence book than story. Don't get me wrong though. UNCOMMON GROUNDS: THE HISTORY OF COFFEE AND HOW IT TRANSFORMED OUR WORLD is too well written and has enough anecdotes to provide the "latte" for what could otherwise have been simply a dark and thick text-book.

One of the issues that Pendergrast focuses on is the stark social contrasts between where coffee is grown and the markets where it is consumed. As we read on it becomes very apparent that for Pendergrast, researching this book was part moral lesson. He pays special attention to issues of economic justice and makes us see some of coffee's story in this light. He says coffee "laborers earn an average of $3 a day. Most live in abject poverty without plumbing, electricity, medical care, or nutritious foods". After shipping and processing the product arrives here at market where "cosmopolitan consumers routinely pay half a day's Third World wages for a good cup of coffee." Along these same lines Pendergrast talks about a movement in the speciality coffee sector towards the idea of "fair trade" coffee which seeks - in the slogan of one of the companies - to offer "Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup". Equal Exchange in the US and Max Havelaar Quality Mark coffee in Europe are the best known groups that say we should consider human rights issues when choosing a brand.

Equally as interesting is the topic of "bird-friendly coffee". Basically it involves a long standing debate over the merits of "shade coffee" (grown under a canopy of trees and thus bird-friendly) or "sun coffee" which is grown on open and exposed slopes. As happens with most things, the discussion ends up as a political argument with opponents of the ecological approach labelling it politically correct coffee. Perhaps that's true, or maybe as others have suggested, it's a brilliant marketing strategy for selling speciality coffee. Pendergrast doesn't say what he thinks but his presentation of a few facts gives us a hint. "Of the fifty-four million Americans who consider themselves birders, twenty-four million actually travelled in 1991 to observe their avian friends. In the process, they spent $2.5 billion - and who knows how much of that went for strong predawn coffee?"

Want to know about coffee prices? Prendergast explains. "One thing I have learned through my coffee research: One consumer's poison is another's nectar." In other words it's all relative and price is very subjective. "Then there's the psychological factor. The rarer the bean the more expensive and desirable. Hence, Hawaiian Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain command premium prices, even though most coffee experts consider them bland in comparison to Guatemalan Antigua or Kenya AA." Of course price is a function of supply and demand and no discussion of coffee could end without referrence to the US. We are the largest market and the home of the biggest coffeehouses (Starbucks of course). The Finns however beat us cups down when it comes to per capita consumption.

I've lived in both Kenya and Jamaica and have had my fair share of their coffee and am a birder myself. The books coverage of those topics was therefore of particular interest to me. Whatever your tastes and interests and whether or not you even drink coffee, there's much to learn and even more to enjoy in this fascinating look at our favorite brew.