Since its discovery some 2,000 years ago, coffee has given the authorities pause, for wherever people gather to drink it, you will find controversy, political debate and innovative ideas. (The modern insurance industry was born in a London coffeehouse that grew into Lloyd's of London.) The world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug has also fueled artists, musicians and writers -- and inspired a plethora of books on coffee itself. Recently that literature has seen two notable additions.

Stewart Lee Allen's "The Devil's Cup" is one-third history of coffee, two-thirds gonzo travelogue. This is the work of a traveler who braves bandits, border skirmishes and life-threatening sea voyages to sample exotic (and often wretched) brews that have played a role in the history of coffee. The reader joins him on a caffeinated trip from Harrar, Ethiopia, where coffee was discovered, to Adrien, Texas, where Allen finds what he dubs the "all-American joe ... awful and terrifying and beyond compare." He traveled 20,000 miles in researching this adrenaline-filled book, wading into his subject neck-deep and capturing its mystique.

Continue Reading...