Coffee was a hobby that went off the rails. I moved to Hawai‘i to study coffee horticulture in graduate school and became a generalist coffee scientist by the end of it. My coffee library contains over 100 books, and it is incomplete! I approach coffee as an academic, but I’ve owned some retail companies that have taught me to talk and think about coffee in a way that doesn’t scare people off. Coffee is what I love, and I love talking about it with other people.
I wrote
The Little Coffee Know-It-All: A Miscellany for Growing, Roasting, and Brewing, Uncompromising and Unapologetic
I love this book because it captures the experience of coffee tasting as it really happens and explores it from a social science perspective. What I love most about the book, though, is how much I disagree with some of its content; it is wonderful to love someone’s perspective and effort without always seeing eye to eye. Reader beware: the first part of the book is heavily academic, but it clears out and eventually becomes easy reading.
Draws upon the situated work of professional coffee tasters in over a dozen countries to shed light on the methods we use to convert subjective experience into objective knowledge.
These two volumes are some 1400 pages of coffee science goodness! Yes, there are chemical structures, lists, tables, and unfamiliar words. However, those typically help make things clearer (though it won’t always be the case).
The range of topics is immense, written by experts from around the world. I love that I can start almost any research quest with these books, and I’ll walk away with a good foundation on the topic.
Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world but how does the production influence chemistry and quality? This book covers coffee production, quality and chemistry from the plant to the cup. Written by an international collection of contributors in the field who concentrate on coffee research, it is edited expertly to ensure quality of content, consistency and organization across the chapters.
Aimed at advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers and accompanied by a sister volume covering how health is influenced by the consumption of coffee, these titles provide an impactful and accessible guide to the current research in…
Diary of a Citizen Scientist
by
Sharman Apt Russell,
Citizen Scientist begins with this extraordinary statement by the Keeper of Entomology at the London Museum of Natural History, “Study any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.”
As the author chases the obscure Western red-bellied tiger beetle across New…
If I only had one science-y book that focuses on coffee quality, it might be this one. I love it because it covers topics that consumers, baristas, and roasters want to know about. It isn’t too big and, thankfully, not too expensive.
I also love that it includes some chapters on sustainability, economics, and markets. So, it isn’t just hard sciences that are discussed, but practical information on the coffee industry at large, as well.
The Craft and Science of Coffee follows the coffee plant from its origins in East Africa to its current role as a global product that influences millions of lives though sustainable development, economics, and consumer desire.
For most, coffee is a beloved beverage. However, for some it is also an object of scientifically study, and for others it is approached as a craft, both building on skills and experience. By combining the research and insights of the scientific community and expertise of the crafts people, this unique book brings readers into a sustained and inclusive conversation, one where academic and…
I love this book because it is so depressing. This book does an amazing job of exploring and explaining the economics of the coffee industry, especially as it affects farmers. It paints a grim picture (hence the depression), and it does not try to sugarcoat anything. The global coffee industry is incredibly complex, and this book tries to explain it to us.
I struggled with some of the economic concepts (this book, too, opens with a deep dive into economic academia). However, for the most part, those struggles didn’t interfere with my understanding of the essential ideas in the book.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
It can be a challenge for academics to write books that are everyday-useful to practitioners.
I love this book because it is written as a guide for farmers. Thus, anyone can read it and learn about coffee biology, production, processing, defects, and a slew of other topics without needing a technical background. I always start looking for production-relevant material with this book. It has never led me astray!
An outstanding and currently the only comprehensive handbook for the coffee-professional. 40 authors from the leading coffee-growing countries present the most recent technologies applied to coffee husbandry. The book features 900 carefully selected illustrations, 300 of these in full color, which substantiate the written text. The handbook provides basic guidelines and recommendations which are applicable everywhere rather than referring to any specific country. Added to this, the reader will find numerous data tables and an overview of relevant information sources.
This book is effectively a coffee FAQ, with each chapter answering a question that is posed in the chapter title. As much as possible, the answers were based on evidence-based scientific inquiry and written without much jargon. In other words, the latest scientific understanding of a topic was distilled into a form easily accessible to anyone.
The book covers a range of topics, broken into four sections: the bean (biology and farming), the roast, the brew, and the cup. I tried to keep it fun and lighthearted so that it was a pleasure to read, unlike the high school science textbooks we’ve tried so hard to forget!
Why is it that most fast-growing companies never take any venture capital? Simple. As entrepreneurs like Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk have figured out, the best and most hospitable source of funding is your customers - not investors!
In The Customer-Funded Business, John Mullins identifies the five…
A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman
by
Lindy Elkins-Tanton,
A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman explores how a philosophy of life can be built from the lessons of the natural world. Amid a childhood of trauma, Lindy Elkins-Tanton fell in love with science as a means of healing and consolation. She takes us from the wilds…
