Customer Reviews

The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In The Devil's Cup, Stewart Lee Allen decides to travel the world in search of the history of coffee. He travels on a budget that leads to many interesting scenarios, such as crossing the Atlantic on a cargo ship with a handful of other passengers, that have little to nothing to do with coffee. Much of his info on the history of coffee in Europe is a recitation (although amusingly told) of more staid histories of coffee. He spends most of his travels looking for either the best or worst cup of coffee. After I finished the book, I felt like I had read several good anecdotal stories and legends about the origins and history of coffee, and had also read a rather crazy, but interesting, travelogue that loosely related to the spread of coffee from Africa to the rest of the world. It was a fun read and worth reading, but I am still looking for a more focused and complete history of coffee.

I received this book as a gift and was hoping for a more informative book about coffee, its history, and its intricacies. Instead, I found a collection of miscellaneous chapters that were, at best, loosely connected. The anecdotes provoked laughter, but I don't think I would call it hilarious. "The Devil's Cup" is a light read and worthwhile so long as you don't open the book hoping for an academic read.

I came across this book by accident and bought it out of my sheer love for coffee. But the book not only has the great tale of how coffee came from Africa and made it's way all over the earth to the daily drink we know today, it also is a first rate travelogue. The author follows coffee's migration from Africa to Europe. Mr. Allen has quite a knack for finding and reporting his adventures and misadventures with a fun easy to read style.

If you like non-fiction travelogues, then do yourself a favor and buy this book.

I enjoyed this book by Mr. Allen. It is basically a personal narrative on his travels so it can also be considered a travel essay. As he experiences various regions, he stops and samples various brews. The "History of the World" portion of the title comes from amusing anecdotes throughout the book relating to coffee. I enjoyed learning about some of the regions where coffee was outlawed at a time and the reasoning or lack of behind it. I am only giving it four stars because I wanted more as was related to the title and less narrative. Some chapters are amusing, but there are portions of the book I just skipped over, but all in all a nice effort and I would recommend it. This book appeared to have been written very quickly with quick tidbits of humour. I am convinced Mr Allen was intoxicated with double shot's of espresso while writing this text. After I finished, I brewed up some coffee of my own!

- David Carlin

The Devil's Cup is a very enjoyable book...

It's not just a history book. It's not just a travelog. It's not just an essay on the politics of the import and export of a consumer good. It's more than that, it's an adventure that follows the trail of that most wonderful beverage, coffee. Where did coffee originate from? How did it make it's way from country to country, from continent to continent? Who was responsible for the many moves that coffee has made? For the different ways that coffee is enjoyed? How do different cultures view this magnificent bean? What role did coffee play in the creation of civilization? Of the shaping of our globe as it is today? These are the sorts of answers you'll find within this book, but not presented to you in a bland history bookish sort of way... No, no, the answers lie within tales of travel and first hand accounts of experiences with the actual places involved...

And all of this comes with a ribald sense of humor, a fantastic sense of adventure and stories that will have you running off to grab a cup of Joe to enjoy this book with.

I'm a huge fan of the food-history-travelogue style of writing, and this book satisfied my craving quite nicely. I found myself accelerating my reading to see what would happen next, as the author travels the world in search of various historical brews. From Africa to the Middle East to Europe and beyond, you feel like you're right there, experiencing the bustle of busy marketplaces and the chatter of a Viennese cafe. It's written in an amusing prose and presents an array of intruiging tidbits of historical evidence.

As I sipped my coffee along-side the book, I couldn't help but experiment and day-dream of whether the brew tasted even remotely similar just a few hundred years ago, although I found myself (unfortunately?) short on ambergris. It's not often that I read a book in just about one sitting, but I was hooked as soon as I started reading.

As a well-traveled and verified coffee fanatic, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen. There are many books more encyclopedic on the history of coffee but it is rare to find one like this that masterfully weaves centuries of historical fact with a modern tale. If you are not crazy about coffee like I am, Allen's tale of travel through foreign lands is enough reason to read this book. Sure, we have all heard the story of Kaldi the goatherd and how people may have first started to drink coffee. Ever wonder why we call it Java, why we refer to a cup of coffee as a "Cup of Joe" and what do the Capuchin monks have to do with Cappuccino? The Devil's Cup will fill your mug with anecdotes, proverbs and explanations related to the world's favorite beverage while Allen weaves in a report on his adventures around the world.

I love to travel, am interested in history, and drink more coffee than is probably healthy every day. This book was right up my alley. I've re-read this book more than once and have given it away more times than I can remember. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more, the travel log or the history "asides" given so that you hardly notice you're learning about coffee's rich history and influence on cultures and civilizations. After reading this, you'll wonder what secrets and anecdotes other common-place, everyday items have.

I really liked this book, but it is important to know what to expect. You will not find a history of coffee in the usual scholarly style.In fact, it is as much of a travelogue as it is a book on the history of coffee. The author follows the trail of coffee as it spread throughout the world. It tells the story in a lighthearted, trivia kind of way, but that does not diminish the value of the information, which is accurate. Rather, it is decidedly and intentionally non-scholarly and avoids any attempt at serious verbosity. The journey is fun to follow - probably more so as an armchair traveler than it would be in real life. I thought it was funny, well written and a good, easy yet informative read. In the end it fizzles out a bit as the search for coffee tales turns into a somewhat frenzied search for a caffeine kick - not quite the same thing. But still, it does illustrate well how a simple herbal concoction of a rural backwaters village (could be anywhere) slowly, over time evolves into something much more potent and potentially lethal, as preparations become more intricate and the search for the 'active ingredient' develops. This story has been repeated with different 'herbs-turned-drugs' so many times throughout history - one could say it is the history of pharmacy. And so, this book tells as much about the human mind set in pursuit of that ever more powerful punch, as it does about the actual plant and its round-about journey to conquer the world. Despite the lightheartedness of this book, it does raise a lot of questions and is excellent food for thought.

a hybrid between "a history of the world according to coffee" (subtitle) and stewart lee allen's research travelogue, the book follows allen who follows coffee's historical and geographical paths of adoption

the early history of coffee is largely unknown, so the first half of the story primarily narrates allen's travel snags in unsuccessful research; border problems, boat breakdowns, getting ripped off by faux art-smugglers, etc

the 2nd half of the book is content-rich and much more interesting - covering the fascinating rise and role of coffee since the ottoman empire (primarily europe, india and the americas). allen provides a lot of speculation (his and others) with his facts - for a subject as nebulous as coffee's impact on civilization, speculation feels appropriate to me

the format would work better for me if 1) his travel tales worked together to form an interesting narrative of their own and/or 2) they had anything to do with coffee. unfortunately they fail on both these counts, and become filler

overall, allen's caffeinated and irreverent writing style makes the book easy to read and i found it reliably funny. for example on page 126 he writes ->

"the main nonalcoholic source of nutrition, bread is now believed to have been plagued with the hallucinogenic fungus ergot, the base ingredient for lsd. drunk doctors, tipsy politicians, hungover generals: the plague, famine, and war. add a pope on acid, and medieval christianity starts to make a whole lot of sense"

if you're interested in the history of coffee and you're okay with some travelogue-genre fluff, you'll probably enjoy this book. i would give it 3 and half stars if i could