Coffee Culture: Local Experiences, Global Connections

by Catherine M. Tucker

Coffee Culture: Local experiences, Global Connections explores coffee as (1) a major commodity that shapes the lives of millions of people; (2) a product with a dramatic history; (3) a beverage with multiple meanings and uses (energizer, comfort food, addiction, flavouring, and confection); (4) an inspiration for humor and cultural critique; (5) a crop that can help protect biodiversity yet also threaten the environment; (6) a health risk and a health food; and (7) a focus of alternative trade efforts. This book presents coffee as a commodity that ties the world together, from the coffee producers and pickers who tend the plantations in tropical nations, to the middlemen and processors, to the consumers who drink coffee without ever having to think about how the drink reached their hands.

188 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2010

Reviews

[Pak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not about the growth of coffee, focuses on the social aspects of coffee drinking.

Statistics to show how coffee has become popular in everyday life.

[Cara Lynn]

Read for school

[Aliah]

Informative and written in a manner that's understandable.
Divided into 4 parts:
(1) coffee culture, social life, and global history;
(2) accolades and antipathies: coffee controversies through time;
(3) coffee production and processing; and
(4) markets and the modern world system.

Learn about the history of coffee and how "coffee culture" came to be in today's societies. Understand the process of coffee growth, harvest, and production as well as the methods which allow or do not allow coffee to be a sustainable product. Makes you think about "fair trade" and equal opportunity.

Shows how the world is connected through a beverage many people consume.