Coffee Mark Pendergast's Book "Uncommon Research Proposal

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One still cannot live with a clear conscience and drink a cup of coffee without paying the price of knowing that somewhere in the world there are people who are switching to growing coca instead of coffee trees because coffee, the only alternative to becoming a villain, failed to provide the necessary means for a decent living. Coffee continues to be a product that brings economic advantages for latifundia plantation owners and the rest of the economic chain after them and only small compensations for those who effectively work on these plantations. Although Pendergast is obviously very fond of his coffee, he does not neglect to emphasize this evil aspect in the history of coffee.

The Prologue to this book is almost an introduction to a fairytale. The author himself is picking coffee berries in on the mountain slopes of Guatemala. More than a fairytale, it sounds as if he describes the beginning of a love affair, or better yet, the finding of a long lost lover. In spite of the technological advances made ever since the beginning of the industrial era, Pendergatst's description of the harvesting in Guatemala, in the late 1990s reveals methods rather close to the rudimentary Medieval times. The only sector related to crops growing and harvesting appears to be that of coffee trees varieties that are used today for the most efficient results: hybrids. On the other hand, science strongly interfered in the rest of the process involving coffee consumption. The technological advancement and scientific discoveries that led to mass communication means such as the railroad, the steamship and all the rest until modern maritime and air transportation means offered traders ways to reduce the transportation costs tremendously. And finally, the wonderful science of marketing brought coffee on the everyday tables of the masses worldwide, making the costs for purchasing a pound of coffee lower than ever before. Pendergast bridges the gap between the first coffee plants discovered in Ethiopia and the huge coffee industry involving giants like Starbucks by presenting the development of the coffee industry from both social and economical points-of-view.

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The industrial era changed not only the way people traveled and communicated forever, but it also led to changes in this chain that links the coffee producers to the final link: the coffee consumer. Industrial coffee roasters, mass communication means and marketing finally led to a huge shift in consumer preferences when it came to coffee in the country where coffee did not have much chances of becoming a nationwide consumed beverage, the United States: "By the 1959s, coffee was the American middle-class beverage of choice"(Pendergast, xviii). As soon as coffee became such an important element on the table of the average American, passions unleashed again. Medicine had a heavy word to say in the dispute between those who considered coffee a drug and those who did not agree with this theory. Taking advantage of a population that was becoming (or that was led to believe that it became) more conscious about health problems related to nourishment, adversaries of coffee, like Charles William Post made their fortunes bringing coffee substitutes on the market. Pendergast grants a half of a chapter to this man and his life achievements. Since coffee depended and influenced lifestyles, the author presents Charles Post as a man of his times, a man who was worth 20 million dollars by the time of his death.

Since its first discovery, in Medieval times, in Ethiopia, coffee has accompanied the evolution of the human race without failing once. People and governments saw in coffee a way to prosper, but the costs were always disproportionate compared with the initial investment. Pendergast has succeeded to present a history of the coffee that focuses on the faults, vices as well as on the virtues of the human nature. He has followed the road coffee traveled thorough ages all around the globe to unravel a world that is today closely connected with this dark brew that made aristocracy, artists or common people lose their minds over….....

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