God In A Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee

God In A Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee by Weissman, Michaele. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780470173589.

Can a cup of coffee reveal the face of God? Can it become the holy grail of modern-day knights errant who brave hardship and peril in a relentless quest for perfection? Can it change the world? These questions are not rhetorical. When highly prized coffee beans sell at auction for $50, $100, or $150 a pound wholesale (and potentially twice that at retail), anything can happen. In God in a Cup, journalist and late-blooming adventurer Michaele Weissman treks into an exotic and paradoxical realm of specialty coffee where the successful traveler must be part passionate coffee connoisseur, part ambitious entrepreneur, part activist, and part Indiana Jones. Her guides on the journey are the nations most heralded coffee business hotshots—Counter Cultures Peter Giuliano, Intelligentsias Geoff Watts, and Stump-towns Duane Sorenson. With their obsessive standards and fiercely competitive baristas, these roasters are creating a new culture of coffee connoisseurship in America—a culture in which $10 lattes are both a purists pleasure and a way to improve the lives of third-world farmers. If you love a good cup of coffee—or a great adventure story—youll love this unprecedented look up close at the people and passions behind todays best beans.