Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

by Mark Pendergrast

  NOTES ON SOURCES

  In the interests of space, I have written the brief bibliographic essay below to replace the extensive original endnotes and bibliography. For those, see the first hardback edition, or contact me through my website, www.markpendergrast.com.

  —Mark Pendergrast

  General books on coffee history and cultivation: Among the first were Francis Thurber’s Coffee: From Plantation to Cup (1881); Robert Hewitt Jr.’s Coffee: Its History, Cultivation and Uses (1872) and Edwin Lester Arnold’s Coffee: Its Cultivation and Profit (1886). William H. Ukers’s All About Coffee (2nd ed., 1935) is the classic text. Heinrich Eduard Jacob, a German journalist, offered The Saga of Coffee (1935), and Colombian Andrés C. Uribe wrote Brown Gold (1954). Frederick L. Wellman wrote the monumental, if technical, Coffee: Botany, Cultivation and Utilization (1961), followed by Modern Coffee Production (2nd ed., 1962), by A. E. Haarer. British expert Edward Bramah offered Tea & Coffee (1972) and Coffee Makers (1989). Ulla Heise contributed Coffee and Coffeehouses (1987), while Gordon Wrigley wrote Coffee (1988), a technical treatise. Two members of the Illy family, famed for Italian espresso, wrote the lavishly illustrated The Book of Coffee (1989). Philippe Jobin assembled the reference work The Coffees Produced Throughout the World (1992). Australian Ian Bersten has written the fine Coffee Floats, Tea Sinks (1993), and Alain Stella contributed the coffee-table The Book of Coffee (1997). Stewart Lee Allen penned the quirky and entertaining book The Devil’s Cup (1999). Daniel and Linda Lorenzetti’s The Birth of Coffee features photos of global coffee cultivation. Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer’s The World of Caffeine (2001) offers a well-researched, detailed history of coffee, tea, and chocolate, along with caffeine’s cultural, physiological, and psychological effects. Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History (2004) is an intriguing but undocumented and sketchy history. Michaele Weissman’s God in a Cup (2008) features three young world-roaming specialty coffee men.

  Film documentaries include Santiago’s Story (1999), from TransFair USA; Grounds for Hope (2000), from Lutheran World Relief; Grounds for Action (2004), directed by Marco Tavanti from Jubilee Economics Ministries; Coffee Crisis (2003), from the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation; Black Coffee (2005), directed by Irene Angelico; Coffee with the Taste of the Moon (2005), produced by Michael Persinger; Black Gold (2006), directed by Nick and Marc Francis; Birdsong & Coffee (2006), directed by Anne Macsoud and John Ankele; Buyer Be Fair (2006), produced/written by John de Graaf; From the Ground Up (2009), directed by Su Friedrich.

  There are numerous books about the characteristics of coffee from different origins, along with roasting and brewing information. Among the earliest and best was The Story of Coffee and Tea (2nd ed., 1996), by Joel, David, and Karl Schapira, along with Kenneth Davids’s many excellent books, such as Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing & Enjoying (in many editions), Timothy Castle’s The Perfect Cup (1991), Claudia Roden’s Coffee (1994), Corby Kummer’s The Joy of Coffee (1995), Jon Thorn’s The Coffee Companion (1995), Coffee Basics, by Kevin Knox and Julie Sheldon Huffaker (1996), and Aroma of Coffee (2nd ed., 2003), by Luis Norberto Pascoal. For tasters, there is Ted Lingle’s The Coffee Cuppers’ Handbook (3rd ed., 2001) and Paul Katzeff’s English/Spanish The Coffee Cuppers’ Manifesto (2001). Espresso lovers can consult David Schomer’s Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques (revised 2004) and Rinantonio Viani and Andrea Illy’s Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality (2nd ed., 2005).

  I relied primarily on three books for information on caffeine’s health effects: Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine (1996), by Stephen Braun; the more comprehensive Understanding Caffeine (1997), by Jack James; and The World of Caffeine (2001), by Weinberg and Bealer. Professional articles on caffeine by Roland Griffiths and John Hughes were also invaluable. Kicking the Coffee Habit (1981), by Charles F. Wetherall, and Caffeine Blues (1998), by Stephen Cherniske, are typical of the anti-caffeine books.

  Three coffee organizations have extensive resources and publications: the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in Long Beach, California, the National Coffee Association (NCA) in New York City, and the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in London.

  The first coffee trade journal was the Spice Mill (now defunct), but the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, long edited by the renowned William Ukers, eventually superseded it and remains the standard in the field. There are many other fine coffee periodicals, notably Barista, Coffee & Cocoa International, Coffee Talk, Fresh Cup, Roast, and Specialty Coffee Retailer. The now-defunct World Coffee & Tea also offered good coverage. Three Internet-only magazines are available: Comunicaffe International and Comunicaffe (www.comunicaffe.com); Virtual Coffee (www.virtualcoffee.com); and Café Culture Magazine (www.cafeculturemagazine.co.uk). Coffee blogs and other sites: Coffee Review (www.coffeereview.com), by Kenneth Davids; Coffee Geek (www.coffeegeek.com), by Mark Prince; Coffee Sage (www.coffeesage.com), by Joe Sweeney; Coffee Connaisseur (www.coffeeconnaisseur.com), by Steve Gorth; Coffeed.com (www.coffeed.com), “for professionals and fanatics”; Coffee Research (www.coffeeresearch.org), by Coffee Research Institute; Coffee Origins’ Encyclopedia (www.supremo.be), by Belgian importer Supremo Coffee.

  Useful histories/books on individual companies: A & P: A & P: A Study in Price-Cost Behavior and Public Policy (1966), by M. A. Adelman; That Wonderful A & P! (1969), by Edwin P. Hoyt; The Rise and Decline of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (1986), by William I. Walsh; Alice Foote MacDougall: The Autobiography of a Business Woman (1928), by Alice Foote MacDougall; Arbuckles: Arbuckles: The Coffee That Won the West (1994), by Francis L. Fugate; CFS Continental: More Than a Coffee Company: The Story of CFS Continental (1986), by Jim Bowman; Claude Saks: Strong Brew (1996), by Claude Saks; Coca-Cola: For God, Country and Coca-Cola (2d ed., 2000), by Mark Pendergrast; Columbian Coffee: Juan Valdez: The Strategy Behind the Brand (2008), by Mauricio Reina et al; Douwe Egberts: Van Winkelnering Tot Weredlmerk: Douwe Egberts (1987), by P. R. Van der Zee; Folgers: The Folger Way (1962), by Ruth Waldo Newhall; Jacobs: 100 Years of Jacobs Cafe (1995), by Kraft Jacobs Suchard; Jewel Tea: Sharing a Business (Jewel Tea, 1951), by Franklin J. Lunding; The Jewel Tea Company (1994), by C. L. Miller; La Minita: Hacienda La Minita (1997), by William J. McAlpin; Lavazza: Lavazza: 100 Years of Lavazza History (1995), by Notizie Lavazza; Maxwell House: Maxwell House Coffee: A Chronological History (1996), by Kraft Foods; MJB: Coffee, Martinis, and San Francisco (MJB, 1978), by Ruth Bransten McDougall; Nestle: Nestle: 125 Years (1991), by Jean Heer; Probat: The Heavenly Inferno (1968), by Helmut Rotthauwe; Procter & Gamble: Eyes on Tomorrow: The Evolution of Procter & Gamble (1981), by Oscar Schisgall; Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble (1993), by Alecia Swasy; Starbucks: It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles for a Life at Starbucks (2007), by Howard Behar; Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks’ Stock (2008), by Karen Blumenthal; Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture (2007), by Taylor Clark; Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino (2008), by Kim Fellner; How Starbucks Save My Life (2007), by Michael Gates Gill; Trade-Off (2009), by Kevin Maney and Jim Collins; The Starbucks Experience (2006), by Joseph A. Michelli; Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture (2006), by John Moore; Pour Your Heart Into It (Starbucks history, 1997), by Howard Schultz and Dori Jones Yang; My Sister’s a Barista (2005), by John Simmons; Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks (2009), by Bryant Simon; The Gospel According to Starbucks (2007), by Leonard Sweet; W. R. Grace: Grace: W. R. Grace & Company (1985), by Lawrence A. Clayton.

  Books on coffee prices and international commodity schemes include: Open Economy Politics (1997), by Robert H. Bates; The Corner in Coffee (fiction, 1904), by Cyrus Townsend Brady; The Coffee Paradox (2005), by Benoit Daviron and Stefano Ponte; An Oligopoly: The World Coffee Economy and Stabilization (1971), by Thomas Geer; Trading Down (2005), by Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte; The Brazilian C
offee Valorization of 1906 (1975), by Thomas H. Holloway; The International Political Economy of Coffee (1988), by Richard L. Lucier; Rise and Demise of Commodity Agreements (1995), by Marcelo Raffaelli; The Inter-American Coffee Agreement of 1940 (1981), by Mary Rohr; Studies in the Artificial Control of Raw Material Supplies (1932), by J. W. F. Rowe; Grounds for Agreement (2004), by John Talbot; Coffee to 1995 (1990), by Michael Wheeler; The World Coffee Economy (1943), by V. D. Wickizer.

  Books about Fair Trade and the coffee crisis of 1999-2004: Gregory Dicum and Nina Luttinger wrote The Coffee Book (1999, 2006), concentrating primarily on social and environmental issues. Mugged: Poverty in Your Coffee Cup (2002), by Charis Gresser and Sophia Tickell, is an Oxfam overview. John Talbot’s Grounds for Agreement (2004) argues for a new quota system via an International Coffee Agreement. Daniel Jaffe’s Brewing Justice (2007) is about the impact of Fair Trade on cooperatives in Oaxaca, Mexico. Confronting the Coffee Crisis (2008), edited by Christopher M. Bacon et al., is a collection of academic essays on Fair Trade in Central America and Mexico. Other books: Fair Trade (2005), by Charlotte Opal and Alex Nichols; Organic Coffee (2006), by Maria Elena Martinez-Torres; Branded! (2007), by Michael E. Conroy; Fair Trade (2007), edited by Laura T. Raynolds et al.; Fair Trade Coffee (2007), by Gavin Fridell; 50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade Coffee (2007), by Miles Litvinoff and John Madeley; Fair Trade for All (revised ed., 2007), Joseph E. Stiglitz; The Handbook of Organic and Fair Trade Food Marketing (2007), by Simon Wright and Diane McCrea.

  Coffee history involves a great deal of Latin American, African, and Asian history and politics, and I consulted numerous volumes. Among the more useful were:

  For Latin America: Crucifixion by Power (1970), by Richard N. Adams; La Matanza (1971) and The War of the Dispossessed (1981), by Thomas P. Anderson; El Salvador: The Face of Revolution (1982), by Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk; The Brazilian Economy (1989), by Werner Baer; Roots of Rebellion (1987), by Tom Barry; Bitter Grounds (fiction, 1997), by Sandra Benitez; The Colombian Coffee Industry (1947), by Robert Carlyle Beyer; Getulio Vargas of Brazil (1974), by Richard Bourne; Land, Power, and Poverty (1991), by Charles D. Brockett; Violent Neighbors (1984), by Tom Buckley; The Political Economy of Central America Since 1920 (1987), by Victor Bulwer-Thomas; three fine books by E. Bradford Burns: Eadweard Muybridge in Guatemala (1986), A History of Brazil (2nd ed., 1980), and Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History (1994); Coffee and Peasants (1985), by J. C. Cambranes; Coffee, Society and Power in Latin America (1995), edited by William Roseberry et al.; Thy Will Be Done (1995), by Gerald Colby and Charlotte Dennett; With Broadax and Firebrand (1995), by Warren Dean; Vargas of Brazil (1967), by John W. F. Dulles; The Wine Is Bitter (1963), by Milton S. Eisenhower; Erwin Paul Dieseldorff (1970), by Guillermo Nañez Falcón; Massacres in the Jungle (1994), by Ricardo Falla; Coffee, Contention and Change in Modern Brazil (1990), by Mauricio A. Font; The Masters and the Slaves (1933), by Gilberto Freyre; Open Veins of Latin America (1973), by Eduardo Galeano; Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (1984) and Revolution in the Countryside (1994), by Jim Handy; Early Twentieth-Century Life in Western Guatemala (1995), by Walter B. Hannstein; Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People (1978), by Robert Deb Heinl Jr. and Nancy Gordon Heinl; The CIA in Guatemala (1982), by Richard H. Immerman; Coban and the Verapaz (1974), by Arden R. King; Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees (1997), by Arnold Krammer; Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (1983), by Walter LaFeber; Latin America in the 1940s (1994), edited by David Rock; Rural Guatemala (1994), by David McCreery; Bitter Grounds: Roots of Revolt in El Salvador (1985), by Lisa North; Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America (1997), by Jeffrey M. Paige; Coffee in Colombia (1980), by Marco Palacios; A Brief History of Central America (1989), by Hector Perez-Brignoli; Generations of Settlers (1990), by Mario Samper; A Winter in Central America and Mexico (1885), by Helen J. Sanborn; Bitter Fruit (1983), by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer; The Second Conquest of Latin America (1998), edited by Steven C. Topik and Allen Wells; Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism (1980), by Mitchell A. Seligson; Coffee Planters, Workers and Wives (1988), by Verena Stolcke; I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983), by Rigoberta Menchú; Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (1999), by David Stoll; Managing the Counterrevolution (1994), by Stephen M. Streeter; The Slave Trade (1997), by Hugh Thomas; Political Economy of the Brazilian State, 1889-1930 (1987), by Steven Topik; Barbarous Mexico (1910), by John Kenneth Turner; El Salvador (1973), by Alastair White; Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (2004), by Daniel Wilkinson; States and Social Evolution (1994), by Robert G. Williams; Coffee and Democracy in Modern Costa Rica (1989), by Anthony Winson; Central America: A Nation Divided (2nd ed., 1985), by Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.

  For Africa and Asia: The Decolonization of Africa (1995), by David Birmingham; The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (1994), by Crawford Young; Black Harvest (film about Papua New Guinea coffee, 1992), by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson; Max Havelaar (1860), by “Multatuli,” Eduard Douwes Dekker; Decolonization and African Independence (1988), edited by Prosser Gifford; Out of Africa (1938), by Isak Dinesen; Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (1985), by Ralph S. Hattox; Coffee, Co-operatives and Culture (1992), by Hans Hedlund; The Flame Trees of Thika (1982), by Elspeth Huxley; Coffee: The Political Economy of an Export Industry in Papua New Guinea (1992), by Randal G. Stewart; The Pioneers 1825-1900: The Early British Tea and Coffee Planters (1986), by John Weatherstone; In Bad Taste? (2007), by Massimo Francesco Marcone, has a chapter on Kopi Luwak coffee; Coffee: Authentic Ethiopia (2010), by Majka Burhardt. About the suppression of the Montagnards in Vietnam, see Gerald Hickey’s Sons of the Mountains (1982), Free in the Forest (1982), and Window on a War (2002), as well as Human Rights Watch’s Repression of Montagnards (2002) and No Sanctuary (2006). Also see Christianity and the State in Asia (2009), ed. by Julius Bautista and Francis Khek Gee Kim.

  In the consuming countries, books on advertising, marketing, and general business were useful, such as The Golden Web (1968) and A Tower in Babel (1966) by Erik Barnouw; Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity (2008), by Rohit Bhargava; The Age of Television (3rd ed., 1972), by Leo Bogart; The Golden Years of Broadcasting (1976), by Robert Campbell; Your Money’s Worth (1927), by Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink; Made in the USA (1987), by Thomas V. DiBacco; Captains of Consciousness (1976), by Stuart Ewen; The Mirror Makers (1984), by Stephen Fox; The Lives of William Benton (1969), by Sidney Hyman; International Directory of Company Histories (1990), edited by Lisa Mirabile; Chain Stores in America (1963), by Godfrey M. Lebhar; Madison Avenue (1958), by Martin Mayer; Trail Blazers in Advertising (1926), by Chalmers Lowell Pancoast; Scientific Marketing of Coffee (1960), by James P. Quinn; Our Master’s Voice (1934), by James Rorty; 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (1998), by Al Ries and Laura Ries; Victorian America (1991), by Thomas J. Schlereth; The Psychology of Advertising (1913), by Walter Dill Scott; The Manipulators (1976), by Robert Sobel; A Nation of Salesmen (1994), by Earl Shorris; Value Migration (1996), by Adrian J. Slywotzky; New and Improved (1990), by Richard S. Tedlow; Adcult (1996), by James B. Twitchell; Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay (1996), by Lester Wunderman; Adventures in Advertising (1948), by John Orr Young.

  General books on food included: Food and Drink in History, vol. 5 (1979), edited by Robert Forster; The Taste of America (1977), by John L. and Karen Hess; Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind (1986), by Henry Hobhouse; Food of the Gods (1992), by Terence McKenna; Sweetness and Power (1985), by Sidney Mintz; Pharmacotheon (1993), by Jonathan Ott; Tastes of Paradise (1992), by Wolfgang Schivelbusch; Food in History (1973), by Reay Tannahill; Much Depends On Dinner (1986), by Margaret Visser.

  On C. W. Post: Cerealizing America (1995), by Scott Bruce and Bill Crawford; Cornflake Crusade (
1957), by Gerald Carson; The New Nuts Among the Berries (1977), by Ronald M. Deutsch; Charles William Post (1993), by Peyton Paxson.

  On psychologist John Watson: Mechanical Man (1989), by Kerry W. Buckley.

  Relevant history books of North America and the world included: The Big Change (1952) and Only Yesterday (1931), by Frederick Lewis Allen; The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America (1976), by Thomas M. Coffey; The Americans: A Social History (1969), by J. C. Furnas; Modern Times (1983), by Paul Johnson; American Policies Abroad (1929), by Chester Lloyd Jones et al.; Manias, Panics and Crashes (1989), by Charles P. Kindleberger; The Boston Tea Party (1964), by Benjamin Woods Labaree; The Fifties (1977), by Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak; The New Winter Soldiers (1996), by Richard R. Moser; The Sugar Trust (1964), by Jack Simpson Mullins; Fighting Liberal (1945), by George W. Norris; The Great Good Place (1989), by Ray Oldenburg; The Early English Coffee House (1893), by Edward Robinson; We Say No to Your War (1994), by Jeff Richard Schutts; Hard Times (1970), by Studs Terkel; History and Reminiscences of Lower Wall Street and Vicinity (1914), by Abram Wakeman; The Life of Billy Yank (1952), by Bell Irvin Wiley.

  On shade-grown coffee and migratory birds: Birds Over Troubled Waters (1991), by Russell Greenbeg and Susan Lumpkin; Proceedings, Memorias: 1st Sustainable Coffee Congress (1997), edited by Robert A. Rice et al.; Coffee, Conservation and Commerce in the Western Hemisphere (1996), by Robert A. Rice and Justin R. Ward; Silence of the Songbirds, by Bridget Stutchbury (2007).