The Devil's Cup by
Stewart Lee Allen is a great read for any
coffee nut who's ever wondered about the origins of the great
bean, it's history, and the role it may have played in shaping what we now think of as
Western Civilization.
Allen, always a
journalist and sometimes indulging in other trades, such as
amateur art
smuggling or
grave digging, (he also worked at
Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in
Calcutta) travels through Northeast
Africa, the
Middle East,
India,
Europe, and the
United States.
Along the way, Allen visits places relevant to the history of
coffee like the port of
Al-Makkha. He writes about such
oddities as the
advent of
insurance, which took place in a
London coffeehouse, called
Lloyd's of London, incidentally now one of the largest and
the oldest
insurance company in the world.
Allen's
manic-depressive adventures are
interspersed with
caffeinated nuggets of wisdom and
amusing,
edifying anecdotes that will tell you more about the
magic brown
beverage than you ever
thought you wanted to know.