From the Publisher: Uncommon Grounds is the definitive history of coffee-from its discovery on an Ethiopian mountainside to the age of Starbucks and the coffee crisis of the twenty-first century. A sweeping epic, Uncommon Grounds uses coffee production, trade, and consumption as a window through which to view broad historical themes: the clash and blending of cultures, slavery, the rise of brand marketing, global inequities, fair trade, revolutions, health scares, environmental issues, and the rediscovery of quality. Replete with a cast of eccentric characters-all of them suffused with a passion for the golden bean-Uncommon Grounds is nothing less than a coffee-flavored history of the world, the classic work on coffee culture, fully updated for our times.