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Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug
The epic story of how coffee connected and divided the modern world
Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world--one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism, the leading source of the world's most popular drug, and perhaps the most widespread word on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's five-hundred-year transformation from a mysterious Muslim ritual into an everyday necessity.
This story is one that few coffee drinkers know. It centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world's great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence.
Following coffee from Hill family plantations into supermarkets, kitchens, and workplaces across the United States, and finally into today's ubiquitous caf�s, Sedgewick reveals how coffee bred vast wealth and hard poverty, at once connecting and dividing the modern world. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname "Coffeeland," but for starkly different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present. This extraordinary history of coffee opens up a new perspective on how the globalized world works, ultimately provoking a reconsideration of what it means to be connected to faraway people and places through the familiar things that make up our day-to-day lives.
Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world--one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism, the leading source of the world's most popular drug, and perhaps the most widespread word on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's five-hundred-year transformation from a mysterious Muslim ritual into an everyday necessity.
This story is one that few coffee drinkers know. It centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world's great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence.
Following coffee from Hill family plantations into supermarkets, kitchens, and workplaces across the United States, and finally into today's ubiquitous caf�s, Sedgewick reveals how coffee bred vast wealth and hard poverty, at once connecting and dividing the modern world. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname "Coffeeland," but for starkly different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present. This extraordinary history of coffee opens up a new perspective on how the globalized world works, ultimately provoking a reconsideration of what it means to be connected to faraway people and places through the familiar things that make up our day-to-day lives.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published October 5, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 267 reviews
September 13, 2020
The focus, the range of this book, in my opinion was just too large, the back and forth nature, too confusing. There were parts I enjoyed, the changing nature of the scientific basis of what coffee is and what it does. The Post, Kellogg debate on its unhealthyness, a more natural caramel coffee that sounds hideous. A & P, the first to sell commercially its own coffee, recognizing its value as a moneymaker. Never expected to see Goethe and Balzac in a book about coffee, but it seems even they had opinions on the ciffee debate. Also learned where and how the now expected coffee breaks came about.
So there were interesting tidbits, here and there but it was sometimes hard to find them.
So there were interesting tidbits, here and there but it was sometimes hard to find them.
September 5, 2020
This is a non-fic about the expansion of coffee consumption and how low income coffee producing countries exploit their labor force to produce coffee beans, mostly consumed in middle/high income countries. The book is al over the place: pieces about the culture of coffee drinking interrupted by such far away themes as the first law of thermodynamics (no energy is created or destroyed) to the life of Friedrich Engels to the history of El Salvador to measuring human energy input in calories. While all are interested themes, they are too broadly presented and often one-sidedly. I read is as a part of monthly reading for August-September 2020 at Non Fiction Book Club group.
While the book is about coffee as a drink is global in scope, in terms of coffee growing it mostly localizes itself at Santa Anna’s plantations in El Salvador and the US as the main consumer. While it mentions London coffee houses or Brazil coffee cartels, they are much less important to the story.
As an example of one-sidedness, check the following piece:
“Over the second half of the eighteenth century, coffee spread virtually everywhere in the Americas where there was sufficient sun, rain, and forced labor to make it pay. But in no corner of the Western Hemisphere did coffee take root as it did in Saint-Domingue—Haiti. By the end of the eighteenth century, the French island colony, home to 40,000 white settlers and 500,000 enslaved laborers, was producing half of the world’s annual coffee crop.
The height of coffee production in Haiti was also its demise.”
One can assume that coffee was the main export of Haiti, but several books on Haitian revolution, e.g. The Black Jacobins talk about sugar cane as the main crop. Such omissions are misleading.
Another note that while a lot is taken by showing that the “division of the world into rich and poor paralleled the division of the world into coffee drinkers, overwhelmingly concentrated in the industrialized global north, and coffee workers, even more concentrated in the predominantly agricultural and perpetually “developing” global south. As the most valuable agricultural product of the world’s poorest regions, coffee has played a central role in shaping this divide.” However, no mention of Ricardian trade model from On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation/An Essay on Profits about the idea of comparative advantage and that trade is a non-zero sum game, but a lot about Marxism
The development of El Salvador coffee economy is very interesting from stealing land from native population to using Taylor’s principles in production and creating a situation where there is no food outside a plantation kitchen (fruit trees intentionally cut down, etc), so hired laborers had to work to eat. Of course, such harsh methods led to left-led (incl. communist) revolt in 1932, which was severely put down with serious deathtoll among poor natives. And while the author stressed the capitalist injustice of work to eat principle, he is unaware that this was a direct norm in the Soviet Russia 1918 constitution article 18 (Статья 18. Российская Социалистическая Федеративная Советская Республика признает труд обязанностью всех граждан Республики и провозглашает лозунг: «Не трудящийся, да не ест!» - Article 18. The Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic recognizes labor as the duty of all citizens of the Republic and proclaims the slogan: "Who Does not work, does not eat!")
The book has a very interesting pieces, but they aren’t structured and because they aren’t author’s own discoveries I give the book a low rating.
While the book is about coffee as a drink is global in scope, in terms of coffee growing it mostly localizes itself at Santa Anna’s plantations in El Salvador and the US as the main consumer. While it mentions London coffee houses or Brazil coffee cartels, they are much less important to the story.
As an example of one-sidedness, check the following piece:
“Over the second half of the eighteenth century, coffee spread virtually everywhere in the Americas where there was sufficient sun, rain, and forced labor to make it pay. But in no corner of the Western Hemisphere did coffee take root as it did in Saint-Domingue—Haiti. By the end of the eighteenth century, the French island colony, home to 40,000 white settlers and 500,000 enslaved laborers, was producing half of the world’s annual coffee crop.
The height of coffee production in Haiti was also its demise.”
One can assume that coffee was the main export of Haiti, but several books on Haitian revolution, e.g. The Black Jacobins talk about sugar cane as the main crop. Such omissions are misleading.
Another note that while a lot is taken by showing that the “division of the world into rich and poor paralleled the division of the world into coffee drinkers, overwhelmingly concentrated in the industrialized global north, and coffee workers, even more concentrated in the predominantly agricultural and perpetually “developing” global south. As the most valuable agricultural product of the world’s poorest regions, coffee has played a central role in shaping this divide.” However, no mention of Ricardian trade model from On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation/An Essay on Profits about the idea of comparative advantage and that trade is a non-zero sum game, but a lot about Marxism
The development of El Salvador coffee economy is very interesting from stealing land from native population to using Taylor’s principles in production and creating a situation where there is no food outside a plantation kitchen (fruit trees intentionally cut down, etc), so hired laborers had to work to eat. Of course, such harsh methods led to left-led (incl. communist) revolt in 1932, which was severely put down with serious deathtoll among poor natives. And while the author stressed the capitalist injustice of work to eat principle, he is unaware that this was a direct norm in the Soviet Russia 1918 constitution article 18 (Статья 18. Российская Социалистическая Федеративная Советская Республика признает труд обязанностью всех граждан Республики и провозглашает лозунг: «Не трудящийся, да не ест!» - Article 18. The Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic recognizes labor as the duty of all citizens of the Republic and proclaims the slogan: "Who Does not work, does not eat!")
The book has a very interesting pieces, but they aren’t structured and because they aren’t author’s own discoveries I give the book a low rating.
January 6, 2023
доволі цікава книжка, слухала в аудіо, шкода тільки, що вона, власне, не про саму каву, а про історію капіталізму на прикладі вирощування та продажу кави. тепер щоразу, купуючи горнятко кавусі, можна думати про голод у Латинській Америці, але зробити з цим все одно нічого не вийде, утім, ООН глибоко стурбована
May 13, 2020
3.5 stars. Full review below!
-
Sedgewick provides a vast and detailed account of the origins of coffee in El Salvador, and how it came to take over the entire country, influencing the economy, government and lives of every single person in the country. The toll of coffee on El Salvador and other coffee monocultures is astounding—mainly on those who work in coffee fields and depend on that on-and-off work for the sustenance to live (literally almost starving during times between harvests). The parts of this book that stood out the most to me were when Sedgewick focuses on the lives of the workers, planters and the harsh consequences of growing coffee in El Salvador.
However, Sedgewick often goes off on tangents, giving us extremely detailed background information on topics that are barely tied to the story of coffee, such as thermodynamics and the birth of Communism. While you can understand how these ideas relate to the story Sedgewick was trying to tell, I often found myself confused and distracted from what I wanted to be the main narrative—what was going on in El Salvador. There are also detailed stories of various historical figures, and the children of planters (where they went to school, what they learned), which I think could have been useful if they were better tied into the story. I found that the narrative was jumpy, going from idea to idea, and rarely following a single narrative thread for more than a chapter. I wish reading this book was more of a smooth and focused ride, where we followed the development of the central planter family that Sedgewick introduces, the Hills, without any distractions.
The end was also quite odd. In the span of two chapters, we jump over 50 years in history, where I am sure many interesting and relevant events occurred regarding coffee in El Salvador. After such a detailed historical journey, I expected the timeline to either end in the mid-20th century, or continue to present day with the same diligence. Instead, the ending is a choppy attempt to tie up loose ends, providing us with some view of present-day El Salvador and the coffee growers who still work there.
I did gain a lot of new knowledge about the birth of coffee empires in El Salvador, but I left my reading with more unanswered questions, and a bit of an unsatisfied, frustrated feeling. I am curious to know more, which is a good sign, at least! I think this book is a good introduction to a wide variety of topics, but can sometimes get tiresome with its diversions.
Thank you to Penguin Press for providing me with an advanced digital copy.
-
Sedgewick provides a vast and detailed account of the origins of coffee in El Salvador, and how it came to take over the entire country, influencing the economy, government and lives of every single person in the country. The toll of coffee on El Salvador and other coffee monocultures is astounding—mainly on those who work in coffee fields and depend on that on-and-off work for the sustenance to live (literally almost starving during times between harvests). The parts of this book that stood out the most to me were when Sedgewick focuses on the lives of the workers, planters and the harsh consequences of growing coffee in El Salvador.
However, Sedgewick often goes off on tangents, giving us extremely detailed background information on topics that are barely tied to the story of coffee, such as thermodynamics and the birth of Communism. While you can understand how these ideas relate to the story Sedgewick was trying to tell, I often found myself confused and distracted from what I wanted to be the main narrative—what was going on in El Salvador. There are also detailed stories of various historical figures, and the children of planters (where they went to school, what they learned), which I think could have been useful if they were better tied into the story. I found that the narrative was jumpy, going from idea to idea, and rarely following a single narrative thread for more than a chapter. I wish reading this book was more of a smooth and focused ride, where we followed the development of the central planter family that Sedgewick introduces, the Hills, without any distractions.
The end was also quite odd. In the span of two chapters, we jump over 50 years in history, where I am sure many interesting and relevant events occurred regarding coffee in El Salvador. After such a detailed historical journey, I expected the timeline to either end in the mid-20th century, or continue to present day with the same diligence. Instead, the ending is a choppy attempt to tie up loose ends, providing us with some view of present-day El Salvador and the coffee growers who still work there.
I did gain a lot of new knowledge about the birth of coffee empires in El Salvador, but I left my reading with more unanswered questions, and a bit of an unsatisfied, frustrated feeling. I am curious to know more, which is a good sign, at least! I think this book is a good introduction to a wide variety of topics, but can sometimes get tiresome with its diversions.
Thank you to Penguin Press for providing me with an advanced digital copy.
July 16, 2021
This Is a fine book - more than I thought it would be when I started reading it. It is a biography of sorts, but of whom? A first try would be of a product - coffee - and its place in the US economy, both its production and its consumption. The attraction is clear, people drink lots of coffee and pay a lot these days to do so, although during the current confinement for the plague it is harder to get the required grande or vente coffee constructions at the local Starbucks for $4 or so. The coffee break has been part of American work life since the Great Depression and WW2 and what better topic to talk about than coffee itself. The initial winners among the initial coffee brands also figure prominently - and they are also still available in grocery stores.
...but it is also a biography of coffee in one supplier country - El Salvador - and with it comes a masterful explanation of how the coffee plantation system there worked, along with the production logic behind the plantation system. Given the recent histories of Cotton and Slavery, this book is a nice complementary story. The picture of coffee production is unsparing and difficult to read in spots.
... but Sedgewick’s book is also a history of a key family in El Salvador coffee production - that of James J. Hill who played a prominent role in the growth of the industry there. In many histories of business families, I get concerned that punches might be pulled regarding family members. That does not seem to be the case here and the family portrait that emerges is fascinating.
In addition to the above story lines, however, “Coffeeland” is also a political economy, both for the supply of coffee and the demand for coffee. In terms of supply, coffee production become industrialized and the production regime on the plantations became regimented similarly to how the nascent factories in Britain and the post-Civil War US became regimented. Everything became geared towards maximizing production, lowering costs, and lowering wastage. Sedgewick even goes into Hill’s supervisory practices for his plantations. These accounts are easy to make and harder to substantiate, except that they are substantiated here. Frederick W. Taylor was even brought in to help in establishing the coffee business. The role of the local government is also part of the story.
On the demand side, there is also a complex story. Coffee’s increased US consumption and the enshrining of coffee as a near national drink was associated with the emerging US urban and suburban workplaces in the 20th century, as well as the growth of new distribution channels like supermarkets with the growth of suburbs after WW2, and even the timing of the Panama Canal’s construction, which aided the emergence of San Francisco as a center for the industry.
The double sided political economy of coffee permits readers to compare the costs and benefits of coffee in their lives with the costs and benefits of those who labor to produce that coffee before it comes to the US. Such comparisons are more than a little awkward. ...and I will not read through discussions of “fair trade coffee” the same way again.
The book is well written with short accessible chapters. There are lots of supporting references, including to earlier exposes of the coffee economy from the beginnings of the industry. The author has filled the book with lots of nuanced detail and references to the intellectual life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (theosophy??). For example, you even learn why factories at the time were commonly referred to as “plants” rather than factories.
I like business histories so this was an easy sell. Coffeeland is a superb example of the genre, however, and is worth reading.
...but it is also a biography of coffee in one supplier country - El Salvador - and with it comes a masterful explanation of how the coffee plantation system there worked, along with the production logic behind the plantation system. Given the recent histories of Cotton and Slavery, this book is a nice complementary story. The picture of coffee production is unsparing and difficult to read in spots.
... but Sedgewick’s book is also a history of a key family in El Salvador coffee production - that of James J. Hill who played a prominent role in the growth of the industry there. In many histories of business families, I get concerned that punches might be pulled regarding family members. That does not seem to be the case here and the family portrait that emerges is fascinating.
In addition to the above story lines, however, “Coffeeland” is also a political economy, both for the supply of coffee and the demand for coffee. In terms of supply, coffee production become industrialized and the production regime on the plantations became regimented similarly to how the nascent factories in Britain and the post-Civil War US became regimented. Everything became geared towards maximizing production, lowering costs, and lowering wastage. Sedgewick even goes into Hill’s supervisory practices for his plantations. These accounts are easy to make and harder to substantiate, except that they are substantiated here. Frederick W. Taylor was even brought in to help in establishing the coffee business. The role of the local government is also part of the story.
On the demand side, there is also a complex story. Coffee’s increased US consumption and the enshrining of coffee as a near national drink was associated with the emerging US urban and suburban workplaces in the 20th century, as well as the growth of new distribution channels like supermarkets with the growth of suburbs after WW2, and even the timing of the Panama Canal’s construction, which aided the emergence of San Francisco as a center for the industry.
The double sided political economy of coffee permits readers to compare the costs and benefits of coffee in their lives with the costs and benefits of those who labor to produce that coffee before it comes to the US. Such comparisons are more than a little awkward. ...and I will not read through discussions of “fair trade coffee” the same way again.
The book is well written with short accessible chapters. There are lots of supporting references, including to earlier exposes of the coffee economy from the beginnings of the industry. The author has filled the book with lots of nuanced detail and references to the intellectual life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (theosophy??). For example, you even learn why factories at the time were commonly referred to as “plants” rather than factories.
I like business histories so this was an easy sell. Coffeeland is a superb example of the genre, however, and is worth reading.
April 1, 2020
Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug by Augustine Sedgewick is a very highly recommended discourse on the history of coffee working from the perspective of the Hill family plantation in El Salvador.
Like many people in the world my day revolves around coffee, so I understand existentially why coffee is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism. The fact that it is the leading source of the world's most popular drug, caffeine, is simply a bonus. In Coffeeland, Augustine Sedgewick traces the history of coffee consumption and its spread across the world.
The story is told through the life of a prominent planter in El Salvador, James Hill. Hill, a British ex-patriot, founded a coffee dynasty by shifting the focus from communal subsistence farming to growing a staple crop, coffee. "Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence." The USA is the world's biggest coffee market, thanks in part to Hill's distribution plans and the invention of vacuum-sealed tin cans.
But this fascinating history is not only focused on Hill and El Salvador, it also covers a myriad of other topics that all tangentially relate back to coffee. Sedgewick covers the wide reaching world economic impact and political machinations of coffee. There are so many aspects of history that involves coffee, areas that I never really considered before reading this interesting narrative. The interplay of various aspects of history is really brought alive in Coffeeland.
This is a well-written and meticulously researched book. Sedgewick provides a copious amount of notes for each chapter, as well as a large selected biography. This is an excellent choice for those who enjoy history, especially if you also like coffee.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/0...
Like many people in the world my day revolves around coffee, so I understand existentially why coffee is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism. The fact that it is the leading source of the world's most popular drug, caffeine, is simply a bonus. In Coffeeland, Augustine Sedgewick traces the history of coffee consumption and its spread across the world.
The story is told through the life of a prominent planter in El Salvador, James Hill. Hill, a British ex-patriot, founded a coffee dynasty by shifting the focus from communal subsistence farming to growing a staple crop, coffee. "Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence." The USA is the world's biggest coffee market, thanks in part to Hill's distribution plans and the invention of vacuum-sealed tin cans.
But this fascinating history is not only focused on Hill and El Salvador, it also covers a myriad of other topics that all tangentially relate back to coffee. Sedgewick covers the wide reaching world economic impact and political machinations of coffee. There are so many aspects of history that involves coffee, areas that I never really considered before reading this interesting narrative. The interplay of various aspects of history is really brought alive in Coffeeland.
This is a well-written and meticulously researched book. Sedgewick provides a copious amount of notes for each chapter, as well as a large selected biography. This is an excellent choice for those who enjoy history, especially if you also like coffee.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/0...
March 21, 2023
This is a strange book.
Sure it has a grab you beginning chapter and then does the obligatory jump back a few hundred years to give you the rest of the story, but it’s almost Frankenstein like in how disparate pieces get stitched together.
History of family, history of El Salvador, history of small players like coffee roasters or certain priests, history of philosophical movements of the 19th century, history of energy physics from Joule and Helmholtz.
All very curious and more than a bit disjointed.
And the overarching theme of forcing the poor to work. El Salvador becomes a Mono crop State bc they can make coffee better than others. The author laments this as a path that makes folks have to work to eat and thus live.
He implies that before in these places an almost Eden like grace existed where people could simply pluck fruit from trees. Only the coming of capitalism and its science of work changed these places he seems to contend, but his argument, if even that’s what it is, drifts in and out between all the above mentioned topics.
Shrug, I didn’t get nearly as much coffee history as I thought.
Sure it has a grab you beginning chapter and then does the obligatory jump back a few hundred years to give you the rest of the story, but it’s almost Frankenstein like in how disparate pieces get stitched together.
History of family, history of El Salvador, history of small players like coffee roasters or certain priests, history of philosophical movements of the 19th century, history of energy physics from Joule and Helmholtz.
All very curious and more than a bit disjointed.
And the overarching theme of forcing the poor to work. El Salvador becomes a Mono crop State bc they can make coffee better than others. The author laments this as a path that makes folks have to work to eat and thus live.
He implies that before in these places an almost Eden like grace existed where people could simply pluck fruit from trees. Only the coming of capitalism and its science of work changed these places he seems to contend, but his argument, if even that’s what it is, drifts in and out between all the above mentioned topics.
Shrug, I didn’t get nearly as much coffee history as I thought.
August 28, 2020
Way too all over the place and hardly focused, but it has some interesting points on coffee plantation culture, the role of state (up to committing genocide on indigenous people to protect the ruling elite), the role of foreign government (in this case the US) to protect their coffee interest, and last but not least, the consumers' relationship with their coffee. How many of you actually know how much the price the planters paid for their workers?
February 4, 2025
Очікував прочитати про особливості вирощування кави, сорти, обробку тощо
Натомість в книзі трошки про це і багато про формування ринку кави, утворення плантацій та кавових династій, про створення сучасних метрик ефективності праці і трішки про історію Сальвадору
Ця невідповідність очікуванням не виявилась проблемою, було цікаво та пізнавально.
Та все ж хочеться прочитати про каву як продукт і дізнатись більше безпосередньо про її виробництво. Якщо ви знаєте такі книги - буду вдячний за інформацію☺️
До речі, в моєму телеграм-каналі
https://t.me/neromanabohdan
можна обмінюватись книжковими враженнями😉
Натомість в книзі трошки про це і багато про формування ринку кави, утворення плантацій та кавових династій, про створення сучасних метрик ефективності праці і трішки про історію Сальвадору
Ця невідповідність очікуванням не виявилась проблемою, було цікаво та пізнавально.
Та все ж хочеться прочитати про каву як продукт і дізнатись більше безпосередньо про її виробництво. Якщо ви знаєте такі книги - буду вдячний за інформацію☺️
До речі, в моєму телеграм-каналі
https://t.me/neromanabohdan
можна обмінюватись книжковими враженнями😉
November 16, 2021
"Каваленд" Огастіна Седжвіка — це перш за все історична оповідь. Про перші реакції європейців на каву, яку пили в арабському світі, про перетворення Сальвадору в країну, де майже вся економіка підпорядкована вирощуванню, збору та обробці одного продукту — кави, про те, як змінювався світ, а разом із світом мінялося ставлення європейців до цього напою, як виробництво і продаж кави впливали на економічний розвиток країн Центральної Америки та світову економіку, як кава стала масовим продуктом, без якого зараз важко уявити робочий день.
Зважаючи на те, що її автор викладає історію та культуру Америки в Міському університеті Нью-Йорка, культурі вирощування кави (ведення бізнесу, роботи з людьми) тут також знайшлося чимало місця.
Страшенно цікаво було спостерігати, як каві за декілька сотень років вдалося пройти шлях від "чорна, як сажа, і на смак така сама" до "в ароматі молочний шоколад, нуга, карамель та кеш’ю, в смаку червоні ягоди та сухофрукти, яблучно-виноградна кислинка, соковита з гладким тілом і легким післясмаком бісквіта". Не те щоби я дуже міг відрізняти в її смаку ці всі кислинки (лимону, яблука, лайму, грейпфрута) або відчути широкий спектр можливих післясмаків, але вірю, що принаймні кавові дегустатори це робити вміють.
Кава у "Каваленді" — не просто кава, а одна із сил, завдяки яким наш світ став таким, яким ми його знаємо зараз: з революціями і переворотами, злетами і падіннями економіки, нерівністю в оплаті праці, доступі до їжі та води і велетенською дистанцією між багатими та бідними.
Попри те, що автор під час оповіді не соромиться заглиблюватися в історичні розвідки, економічні теорії, комуністичні маніфести і навіть закони термодинаміки, серед цього зрізу життя цілого світу з кінця ХІХ ст. і до середини століття ХХ мені вдалося таки трохи навудити цікавих фактів і про саму каву: про подробиці її обробки, відкриття і розвиток смакових якостей, ідеальний "науковий метод" заварювання, про те, що досить тривалий час її якість оцінювали виключно за зовнішнім виглядом, те, що ягоди найкращої кави збирається вручну, і кращі зерна згодом теж відбирають руками, що можна за один день випити 85 горняток кави і не ґиґнутися...
Огастін Седжвік викладає свою історію на фундамент розповіді про розбудову кавової імперії Джеймсом Гілом, вихідцем з Манчестера, котрий наприкінці ХІХ ст. прибув шукати кращої долі в Сальвадор, тяжко працював десятки років щоби віддати позики, які потратив на висаджування і догляд за деревами, економив кожну копійку на працівниках плантацій, годуючи їх лише тортильями з квасолею, вивчав досвід попередників і сучасників, еволюціонував у своїх поглядах щодо ставлення до працівників, не боявся ризикувати і експериментувати з вирощуванням, збором та обробкою кави, пережив декілька кривавих переворотів та революцій і таки виплекав свою "темну імперію", спадкоємці якої досі постачають наш улюблений наркотик до горняток кавоманів.
Це книга про історію світу з перспективи кави, в якій знайшлося місце Марксу та Енгельсу, двом світовим війнам, кільком американським президентам, комуністичним повстанцями з Нікарагуа та Сальвадору, викраденням людей заради викупу і знищенню мільйонів мішків з зерном для стримування падіння цін.
Кажуть, що упродовж тривалого часу людської історії, доки існувало рабство, виробництво цукру (силами рабів) робило з нього кривавий і людожерський продукт...
Цікаво, що в такому контексті можна сказати про каву, котра зараз є одним із найбільш популярних і затребуваних товарів у світі, але досі виробляється у найбільш економічно відсталих регіонах, де люди змушені тяжко гарувати на кавових плантаціях, щоби не голодувати і живуть вони так з діда-прадіда...
Кава підвищує нашу працездатність і пов'язує між собою віддалені місця планети, але ми досі не можемо бути певними, що ті, хто виростив та обробляв це зерно, отримали справедливу оплату праці і мають чим пообідати сьогодні.
Зважаючи на те, що її автор викладає історію та культуру Америки в Міському університеті Нью-Йорка, культурі вирощування кави (ведення бізнесу, роботи з людьми) тут також знайшлося чимало місця.
Страшенно цікаво було спостерігати, як каві за декілька сотень років вдалося пройти шлях від "чорна, як сажа, і на смак така сама" до "в ароматі молочний шоколад, нуга, карамель та кеш’ю, в смаку червоні ягоди та сухофрукти, яблучно-виноградна кислинка, соковита з гладким тілом і легким післясмаком бісквіта". Не те щоби я дуже міг відрізняти в її смаку ці всі кислинки (лимону, яблука, лайму, грейпфрута) або відчути широкий спектр можливих післясмаків, але вірю, що принаймні кавові дегустатори це робити вміють.
Кава у "Каваленді" — не просто кава, а одна із сил, завдяки яким наш світ став таким, яким ми його знаємо зараз: з революціями і переворотами, злетами і падіннями економіки, нерівністю в оплаті праці, доступі до їжі та води і велетенською дистанцією між багатими та бідними.
Попри те, що автор під час оповіді не соромиться заглиблюватися в історичні розвідки, економічні теорії, комуністичні маніфести і навіть закони термодинаміки, серед цього зрізу життя цілого світу з кінця ХІХ ст. і до середини століття ХХ мені вдалося таки трохи навудити цікавих фактів і про саму каву: про подробиці її обробки, відкриття і розвиток смакових якостей, ідеальний "науковий метод" заварювання, про те, що досить тривалий час її якість оцінювали виключно за зовнішнім виглядом, те, що ягоди найкращої кави збирається вручну, і кращі зерна згодом теж відбирають руками, що можна за один день випити 85 горняток кави і не ґиґнутися...
Огастін Седжвік викладає свою історію на фундамент розповіді про розбудову кавової імперії Джеймсом Гілом, вихідцем з Манчестера, котрий наприкінці ХІХ ст. прибув шукати кращої долі в Сальвадор, тяжко працював десятки років щоби віддати позики, які потратив на висаджування і догляд за деревами, економив кожну копійку на працівниках плантацій, годуючи їх лише тортильями з квасолею, вивчав досвід попередників і сучасників, еволюціонував у своїх поглядах щодо ставлення до працівників, не боявся ризикувати і експериментувати з вирощуванням, збором та обробкою кави, пережив декілька кривавих переворотів та революцій і таки виплекав свою "темну імперію", спадкоємці якої досі постачають наш улюблений наркотик до горняток кавоманів.
Це книга про історію світу з перспективи кави, в якій знайшлося місце Марксу та Енгельсу, двом світовим війнам, кільком американським президентам, комуністичним повстанцями з Нікарагуа та Сальвадору, викраденням людей заради викупу і знищенню мільйонів мішків з зерном для стримування падіння цін.
Кажуть, що упродовж тривалого часу людської історії, доки існувало рабство, виробництво цукру (силами рабів) робило з нього кривавий і людожерський продукт...
Цікаво, що в такому контексті можна сказати про каву, котра зараз є одним із найбільш популярних і затребуваних товарів у світі, але досі виробляється у найбільш економічно відсталих регіонах, де люди змушені тяжко гарувати на кавових плантаціях, щоби не голодувати і живуть вони так з діда-прадіда...
Кава підвищує нашу працездатність і пов'язує між собою віддалені місця планети, але ми досі не можемо бути певними, що ті, хто виростив та обробляв це зерно, отримали справедливу оплату праці і мають чим пообідати сьогодні.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2020
Despite the title, this is actually a history of El Salvador through a coffee filtered lens as well as a family that made themselves into one of the "Fourteen Families" political power entity.
From the time that James Hill left England and arrived in El Salvador, he was a man driven to achieve, to not let his lower class origins hold him back and El Salvador of the late nineteenth century was the place he was able to do it. Lush and fertile, the government encouraged the development of private industry, especially that of coffee trees. Hill would continue to buy some of the most fertile of land, that on the sides of the Santa Ana volcano and would experiment with varieties in order to get the most from the thousands of acres under his control.
Sedgewick does go into the growth cycle as well as the difficulties in growing the temperamental coffee trees where even the slightest difference in humidity, temperatures, shade and sun exposure can not only cause changes in production but in the overall taste of the coffee.
He also goes off on tangents. Like into early studies in calories vs. energy which Hill and the other planters did use - provided food in order to encourage workers to stay on the job for entire days. A meal at breakfast just before the beginning of the day and another meal at the end of the day, usually 10-12 hours later. If they wanted to eat - and most small farms had been bought up by the larger plantations - they had to work. It may not have been the strict definition of slavery but it was perilously close to it. And if the employees had the energy to talk and laugh, they weren't providing all the energy to the job he was paying them to do.
Then there is the development of grocery stores - can see where it affected the increased demand for coffee in the U.S. The socialist and/or communism political agendas giving extensive background for the labor disputes between the workers and the planters allied with the government and eventually led to violent revolutions along with various leaders of the Salvadoran groups. The development of cupping as a determination of actually taste and aroma where previously appearance of the beans was a priority. Various coffee organizations within the U.S. And there is a lot of focus on the U.S. as well as Brazil with it's valorization of it's coffee commodity - warehousing tons of product in manipulate the price to the advantage of the Brazilian planters.
Interesting look at one of the Central American countries that would be forced by colonial empires into monoculture economies - in this case, coffee, and next door it was bananas - that would devastate the environment as well as the populace. The Hill family is still prominent in El Salvador although they took a jarring hit when one of the adult grandsons of James Hill was kidnapped by revolutionaries and held for ransom in 1979.
But in turn, as coffee consumption across the world increases, how many of the other producers are not only watching the price of a bag of beans but the political and emotional atmosphere in their country and of their workers.
2020-189
From the time that James Hill left England and arrived in El Salvador, he was a man driven to achieve, to not let his lower class origins hold him back and El Salvador of the late nineteenth century was the place he was able to do it. Lush and fertile, the government encouraged the development of private industry, especially that of coffee trees. Hill would continue to buy some of the most fertile of land, that on the sides of the Santa Ana volcano and would experiment with varieties in order to get the most from the thousands of acres under his control.
Sedgewick does go into the growth cycle as well as the difficulties in growing the temperamental coffee trees where even the slightest difference in humidity, temperatures, shade and sun exposure can not only cause changes in production but in the overall taste of the coffee.
He also goes off on tangents. Like into early studies in calories vs. energy which Hill and the other planters did use - provided food in order to encourage workers to stay on the job for entire days. A meal at breakfast just before the beginning of the day and another meal at the end of the day, usually 10-12 hours later. If they wanted to eat - and most small farms had been bought up by the larger plantations - they had to work. It may not have been the strict definition of slavery but it was perilously close to it. And if the employees had the energy to talk and laugh, they weren't providing all the energy to the job he was paying them to do.
Then there is the development of grocery stores - can see where it affected the increased demand for coffee in the U.S. The socialist and/or communism political agendas giving extensive background for the labor disputes between the workers and the planters allied with the government and eventually led to violent revolutions along with various leaders of the Salvadoran groups. The development of cupping as a determination of actually taste and aroma where previously appearance of the beans was a priority. Various coffee organizations within the U.S. And there is a lot of focus on the U.S. as well as Brazil with it's valorization of it's coffee commodity - warehousing tons of product in manipulate the price to the advantage of the Brazilian planters.
Interesting look at one of the Central American countries that would be forced by colonial empires into monoculture economies - in this case, coffee, and next door it was bananas - that would devastate the environment as well as the populace. The Hill family is still prominent in El Salvador although they took a jarring hit when one of the adult grandsons of James Hill was kidnapped by revolutionaries and held for ransom in 1979.
But in turn, as coffee consumption across the world increases, how many of the other producers are not only watching the price of a bag of beans but the political and emotional atmosphere in their country and of their workers.
2020-189
January 18, 2022
Люблю кофе. Люблю истории о кофе. Получилось познавательно. Вот только текста непосредственно о кофе было процентов 30. Ост��льное - это история Сальвадора с упором даже не на экономические тенденции 19-20 веков, а на политику.
Почему именно Сальвадор был оплотом сюжета, и почему практически никак не затронули другие страны-производители кофе (Бразилия, Колумбия, Никарагуа и т.д), для меня осталось загадкой🤷♀️
Так что, если действительно захочется книгу о том, кто, как и зачем изобрел кофе, нужно подыскать другую литературу.
Почему именно Сальвадор был оплотом сюжета, и почему практически никак не затронули другие страны-производители кофе (Бразилия, Колумбия, Никарагуа и т.д), для меня осталось загадкой🤷♀️
Так что, если действительно захочется книгу о том, кто, как и зачем изобрел кофе, нужно подыскать другую литературу.
February 25, 2023
As others have mentioned, this book pacts a lot of information in here. I wouldn't say it feels disjointed because each topic covered makes sense in the context of this very global food history. However, I think the issue is that the author continually returns to the Hill's family experience. This could have been a point to ground the reader but it just gets confusing, lost in the rest of the information, and, frankly, forced after a while. Anyways, now I know how ports assessed beans on their handsomeness.
April 29, 2024
Thought I would be more interested in this. Started out more about coffee and how it all started which I liked but then turned into a bio about the coffee plantation owner and his family and I just didn’t care about them.
April 4, 2020
If you've never thought about coffee past free trade versus not (or latte versus americano), this is an amazing and educational read. We have James Hill, a British expatriate in El Salvador to thank for the way we drink coffee today. He moved production from small batch to (for want of better words) corporate, taking coffee from a drink for the rich to something accessible for almost everyone. Ironically, of course, the current trend among some is in the reverse. This is written in a journalistic manner, although there are plenty of notes and opportunities to delve deeper. The characters involved and the politics go far beyond what I'd previously understood, making this an especially intriguing read. Thanks to Edelweiss for the Arc. An excellent read.
June 8, 2020
If you want a lesson on what it takes to start an empire, here it is.
An interesting combination of macro and micro economic factors that went into making James Hill one of the largest coffee producers in El Salvador. Interspersed with a general history and basic information on the bean iteself. From small ritualistic beginnings in Yemen to a global plant, coffee is ubiquitous. Its rise to prominence can be correlated to the rise of capitalism as a global system. This book does not take a kind look at the imperialist bent of capitalism, and the author is not subtle with his opinion on coffee being a tool of a overzealous bourgeoisie, the issue being brought up no less than 20 or so times. That being said, he makes his point and after reading through his thoughts those 20 or so times, I would now agree.
I was impressed by the depth of inquiry into methods and conditions the El Salvadorian people endured. And it really set the stage for the rise of communist thought in the region. It really illustrated how people cling to ideologies that are not the best long term, but represent a change from the status quo. (cough* blockchin* cough).
Stylistically, the author at times appears to have drunk too much coffee himself, as the thread of the book will jump all over. One page we are talking about shipping and roasting, the next is a discussion of caloric intake and the minimum amount of food a human needs to survive. It works sometimes, it doesn't at others. I found it less interesting and engaging as the book wore on, as skipping back and forth across decades and continents regularly became tiresome.
Overall, good read, interesting read, but a bit scattered.
An interesting combination of macro and micro economic factors that went into making James Hill one of the largest coffee producers in El Salvador. Interspersed with a general history and basic information on the bean iteself. From small ritualistic beginnings in Yemen to a global plant, coffee is ubiquitous. Its rise to prominence can be correlated to the rise of capitalism as a global system. This book does not take a kind look at the imperialist bent of capitalism, and the author is not subtle with his opinion on coffee being a tool of a overzealous bourgeoisie, the issue being brought up no less than 20 or so times. That being said, he makes his point and after reading through his thoughts those 20 or so times, I would now agree.
I was impressed by the depth of inquiry into methods and conditions the El Salvadorian people endured. And it really set the stage for the rise of communist thought in the region. It really illustrated how people cling to ideologies that are not the best long term, but represent a change from the status quo. (cough* blockchin* cough).
Stylistically, the author at times appears to have drunk too much coffee himself, as the thread of the book will jump all over. One page we are talking about shipping and roasting, the next is a discussion of caloric intake and the minimum amount of food a human needs to survive. It works sometimes, it doesn't at others. I found it less interesting and engaging as the book wore on, as skipping back and forth across decades and continents regularly became tiresome.
Overall, good read, interesting read, but a bit scattered.
January 15, 2022
Come for the coffee, stay for the Communist revolutions in Latin America and explanation of why capitalism sucks.
August 2, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It offers a fascinating and insightful exploration of coffee's history, covering themes of globalisation and the rise of communism. The thread follows the rise of James Hill, who ventured from Manchester, UK, marrying into a coffee family and revolutionising its production, to create on of the worlds largest coffee dynasties. A compelling read that left me more knowledgeable about the world's favorite beverage and its profound impact on societies.
Some reviews have criticised the broad nature of this book, how can a book about coffee dive into communism, the “discovery” of energy and maintain a clear thread throughout? I disagree with those comments, I thought it was very clear and justified why they come in when they do and at the end the author wraps it up pretty clearly
Some reviews have criticised the broad nature of this book, how can a book about coffee dive into communism, the “discovery” of energy and maintain a clear thread throughout? I disagree with those comments, I thought it was very clear and justified why they come in when they do and at the end the author wraps it up pretty clearly
January 4, 2025
i really liked it! history books can only go so high for me, but it was really interesting. some of the deeper dives were a bit harder to get through but the plantations and world politics, and this dark history of destroying the life in el salvador was horrible but im glad i learned about it. i like how the author tied the coffee to the whole history of the country (as they are inextricably tied in reality).
July 25, 2024
Unfortunately the references to Gabriel Garcia Marquez were not enough to save this for me
March 17, 2025
한국에 휴가차 들어갈때 엄마에게 줄 선물로 산 책. 표지와 서문을 읽고 커피 산업 전반의 역사를 다루는 책인줄은 알았지만, 열역학 법칙으로 부터 시작하는 영국의 산업혁명, 인간 노동의 비인간화, 그리고 효율 만능주의적 자본주의가 어떻게 커피 산업을 바꾸었는지, 또한 그에 맞서는 공산주의 혁명이 어떤식으로 태동하고 전개 되었는지 까지 읽게 될줄은 상상도 못했다. 커피 지식을 뛰어넘어 많은 생각거리를 얻었다. 출근길 향긋한 커피 한잔 속에 과학, 경제, 정치를 어우르는 우리의 역사가 담겨있다는 사실을 다시 한번 상기한다.
January 22, 2022
Крута книжка! Її величезний плюс в тому, що автор розповідає про каву з точки зору умовних "пропозиції" (виробництво, доставка тощо) і "попиту" (споживання). В книжці сила силенна деталей: історичних, політичних, культурних, сільськогосподарських, маркетингових тощо. Історію Сальвадору читачі точно вивчать!
Але цю книжку важко слухати, бо вона написана як "Мобі Дік", хоча не така довга. 🤣 Типу персонаж ріже кита, і читач бонусом до цього дійства отримує 50 сторінок історії ножів в цілому і цього зокрема. Прикладів з книжки не наводитиму, щоб не спойлерити.
Ну, і історія таких бізнесів як-от кава дуже кривава.
Але цю книжку важко слухати, бо вона написана як "Мобі Дік", хоча не така довга. 🤣 Типу персонаж ріже кита, і читач бонусом до цього дійства отримує 50 сторінок історії ножів в цілому і цього зокрема. Прикладів з книжки не наводитиму, щоб не спойлерити.
Ну, і історія таких бізнесів як-от кава дуже кривава.
December 11, 2020
Available as an unabridged 15-hour audio download.
I downloaded this audiobook because it was mentioned favorably in “Caffeine” by Michael Pollan, a two-hour-long “Audible Original”. Pollan admits freely that he used Coffeeland as a source for his work, so it's no surprise that there is some duplication between the two books. However, I often need to hear things twice (at least) before I remember them, so this did not bother me.
The book's prologue (“One Hundred Years of Coffee”) and its opening words (“Many years later, ….”) are shout-outs to the GG Marquez classic, but don't get your hopes up for any magic – just realism here. This book is really as much about El Salvador as it is about coffee, and the history of El Salvador, especially in the twentieth century, is all too real.
The ambiguous real-life hero/anti-hero of this book is James Hill. Hill left Manchester, England penniless in 1889 as an 18-year-old, armed with a commission to sell textiles based on a year or so of Spanish lessons at home. He ended up the patriarch of one of the “fourteen families” that ruled El Salvador. At some times, he seemed a better man to work for than his fellow oligarchs, but at other times he showed a remarkably Scrooge-like attitude for someone who came from such humble surroundings.
Hill sometimes disappears from the narrative for a while as the story bounces onto other topics, like, How can coffee make you feel peppier if, taken black, it has no calories? (Although this book raises this question, it does not answer it: to learn the answer, you can listen to “Caffeine”, see above.)
A question (which I actually wondered about from time to time) that this book answered is: Whatever happened to indigo? I mean, if you read history, you know that it was a prized commodity and a source of much colonial exploitation, but today it's just a shade of blue. What happened to indigo, the commodity? Find the answer at audiobook chapter 16, time 15:15.
At the end of Chapter 25, the author connects some disparate historical documents (a study of coffee production, a US Supreme Court decision) and uses some clever mathematics (swiped with attribution by Pollan) to show that the amount of coffee it took six cents (circa 1945) to produce in El Salvador eventually, when supplied in the textile factories of (at that time) Colorado, caused the employers to harvest an extra $22.50 worth of excess value from their coffee-consuming laborers.
Worth a listen.
I downloaded this audiobook because it was mentioned favorably in “Caffeine” by Michael Pollan, a two-hour-long “Audible Original”. Pollan admits freely that he used Coffeeland as a source for his work, so it's no surprise that there is some duplication between the two books. However, I often need to hear things twice (at least) before I remember them, so this did not bother me.
The book's prologue (“One Hundred Years of Coffee”) and its opening words (“Many years later, ….”) are shout-outs to the GG Marquez classic, but don't get your hopes up for any magic – just realism here. This book is really as much about El Salvador as it is about coffee, and the history of El Salvador, especially in the twentieth century, is all too real.
The ambiguous real-life hero/anti-hero of this book is James Hill. Hill left Manchester, England penniless in 1889 as an 18-year-old, armed with a commission to sell textiles based on a year or so of Spanish lessons at home. He ended up the patriarch of one of the “fourteen families” that ruled El Salvador. At some times, he seemed a better man to work for than his fellow oligarchs, but at other times he showed a remarkably Scrooge-like attitude for someone who came from such humble surroundings.
Hill sometimes disappears from the narrative for a while as the story bounces onto other topics, like, How can coffee make you feel peppier if, taken black, it has no calories? (Although this book raises this question, it does not answer it: to learn the answer, you can listen to “Caffeine”, see above.)
A question (which I actually wondered about from time to time) that this book answered is: Whatever happened to indigo? I mean, if you read history, you know that it was a prized commodity and a source of much colonial exploitation, but today it's just a shade of blue. What happened to indigo, the commodity? Find the answer at audiobook chapter 16, time 15:15.
At the end of Chapter 25, the author connects some disparate historical documents (a study of coffee production, a US Supreme Court decision) and uses some clever mathematics (swiped with attribution by Pollan) to show that the amount of coffee it took six cents (circa 1945) to produce in El Salvador eventually, when supplied in the textile factories of (at that time) Colorado, caused the employers to harvest an extra $22.50 worth of excess value from their coffee-consuming laborers.
Worth a listen.
May 1, 2020
"Coffeeland" is a fascinating look into the history of coffee through a focus on one coffee plantation family, the Hill family of El Salvador. Besides looking at the story of coffee as both a drink and a culture here in the United States, "Coffeeland" looks at some of the harder questions behind the coffee cup. How did coffee come to change El Salvador into a monoculture with vast gulfs between the very rich and the very poor? How has coffee influenced the economy of not only El Salvador, but much of Central America and the United States?
I was most interested with the first half of this book, where coffee is put in a global historical context. Fascinating factoids about coffee and its' history are the reasons I pick up a book like this. I definitely appreciated learning about El Salvador's troubled history with coffee from an economic and social perspective, and learned more about the revolutions and massacres of the country than I had expected. The only downside to this book was a tendency of the author to explain in extreme detail the entire history of an idea- whether that idea is the development of economic theory, communism, or anything else. I understand the idea was to firmly root coffee's importance to those ideas, but a more Cliff's Notes version would have not only made those sections easier to read, but I might have not glazed over them and therefore lost what was trying to be explained in the first place. Details and research are important, but so if knowing when only a little background will go a long way.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
I was most interested with the first half of this book, where coffee is put in a global historical context. Fascinating factoids about coffee and its' history are the reasons I pick up a book like this. I definitely appreciated learning about El Salvador's troubled history with coffee from an economic and social perspective, and learned more about the revolutions and massacres of the country than I had expected. The only downside to this book was a tendency of the author to explain in extreme detail the entire history of an idea- whether that idea is the development of economic theory, communism, or anything else. I understand the idea was to firmly root coffee's importance to those ideas, but a more Cliff's Notes version would have not only made those sections easier to read, but I might have not glazed over them and therefore lost what was trying to be explained in the first place. Details and research are important, but so if knowing when only a little background will go a long way.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
June 6, 2020
This careful review of the central role coffee played in world events is indeed thorough. Not only does it cover the details of coffee from the plantations to the cup, but also its historical role in international relations, especially between the US and El Salvador. The parts of the book that focus on the fine points of coffee's development as a commodity in world commerce, its preparation, marketing, and uses by industry are particularly informative, especially to anyone who enjoys their "coffee break." Sedgewick avoids a dry accounting, however, by maintaining a focus on El Salvador and especially on James Hill, the most influential Latin American planter. Clearly, Hill was a complex man. He rose from poverty in the UK to becoming one of the wealthiest men in the Americas. He was intelligent, entrepreneurial, curious, and inventive. However, his main focus was always on profits. His only regard for the workers was how they might benefit his enterprise. Not unlike his peers at the time, his view of labor was as an asset for making profits. His motivations for humane treatment only derived from how such policies might benefit the success of his plantation. Clearly, this played a key role in the social and political unrest that El Salvador experienced throughout its history.
January 28, 2021
I wish I could have liked this book more. It’s packed full of information that I want to know about and learn further about. Jamie Hill, American Coffee producer, and El Salvador, an country so biologically ravaged, that it’s practically unlivable, is an important story to tell. American coffee growers moved in at the beginning of American Imperialism and took over the country. The nearby volcanoes created rich soil that normally wouldn’t be there since its rain forest. They destroyed the rich vegetation and out in coffee trees which poisoned the soil and killed the animals. It’s also prevented the people from food to eat. They were used like slaves and lacked the ability to have their own government, their only ability to get food was from the plantation owners. Jamie Hill comes in during the Depression and later. In a desperate confrontation, the people kidnap Hill. A 12 year long war ensues where people either flee or or are killed in large numbers. Their is no ability to survive in such a destroyed ecosystem except working for coffee plantations. The information is good and important but the writing is stiff and difficult to read. They sentences don’t flow well. I want to know more but will look four a better resource.
November 28, 2020
Ugh. This is a rambling and boring look at the coffee culture that came to be. Nothing too interesting or creative about the book. I'm glad I didn't pay for it (library book), but not glad I read it.
February 8, 2024
I’m torn on how to review this; a lot of it was super interesting, but the majority of it was honestly kind of dry (pun intended lol). I just would have liked the story to move center the laborers on coffee plantations rather than James Hill, who I personally don’t find very interesting. I probably would have liked this a whole lot more if I knew anything about the history of El Salvador but unfortunately I do not, so I felt kinda lost. I think this book is really good in some areas but I was confused and lost during a lot of it. Maybe that’s my own fault; I certainly have no problem with the author, just some of this book bugs me because I don’t think it does a great job of discussing the historical context and everything. It tried to explain the historical context but I don’t think it accomplished what it wanted to. That said, everything specifically about coffee in this book, the energy it gives, and the way it lifts spirits being used by militaries to make more efficient soldiers, and used to produce capital with workers made more energetic and having more pep in their step because of it. And caffeine largely avoiding the types of government crackdowns that other drugs and even alcohol has experienced. Those were all fascinating parts of the book but I don’t think enough tie was spent on coffee specifically. I guess that’s my qualm with this book. I will say, drinking coffee while reading this is chef’s kiss.
January 2, 2023
What it does, it does well, I'm just not sure I like what it does.
Basically, story of coffee is story of El Salvador, it's a story of one man's empire. We watch the life of that man and through it we learn valuable lessons about life. The story is interspersed with some science based facts about coffee and we learn a ton about the history of Latin and North America.
The book feels long, but not like a waste of time, it made me understand a different culture a bit more and I also learned some really interesting things about coffee and the world in general. I'd say it was more of a themed history book rather than an essay on coffee.
Who would I recommend it to? Someone who has plenty of time to burn and wants to just sit back and relax while reading a moderately interesting book on a topic that everyone can understand. It's not a 5/5, it did not make me laugh or cry, but it did teach me a bit more about this culture and its relation to the one I pronounce mine.
Basically, story of coffee is story of El Salvador, it's a story of one man's empire. We watch the life of that man and through it we learn valuable lessons about life. The story is interspersed with some science based facts about coffee and we learn a ton about the history of Latin and North America.
The book feels long, but not like a waste of time, it made me understand a different culture a bit more and I also learned some really interesting things about coffee and the world in general. I'd say it was more of a themed history book rather than an essay on coffee.
Who would I recommend it to? Someone who has plenty of time to burn and wants to just sit back and relax while reading a moderately interesting book on a topic that everyone can understand. It's not a 5/5, it did not make me laugh or cry, but it did teach me a bit more about this culture and its relation to the one I pronounce mine.
August 15, 2025
This book was a little odd. The title implied it would be about a specific person, James Hill, and his coffee company. It sort of was, but mostly wasn't. It started with James Hill moving from England to El Salvador and starting a coffee plantation, but moves around wildly, touching on the coffee mills in San Francisco, coffee's rise in popularity, the concept of the "coffee break." Then it dives into El Salvadoran politics, with a revolution and massacre in 1932. I'm giving this 3 stars because a lot of the book is interesting, but I can't go higher because it's really a disjointed story and there are large chunks of time that are completely overlooked, to the point that the last couple of chapters are kind of jarring.
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