A people's history of coffee and cafés

the long version

A People's History of Coffee and Cafes is an exploration of how a certain plant became a global commodity, creating fortunes and despair, bringing people together and tearing them apart, playing a staring role in the remarkable awakening of our modern world. The theme is coffee; the venue is the coffeehouse - one of the few places where prince and pauper might meet on equal footing. But where did coffee come from? And how did it get to us? For in the course of a single generation, coffee burst onto the European scene like an Arabian Sirocco without the trumpeting of the media, as we know it, paving the way for a new and wonderful product.