Really interesting look at the coffee production process from bean to cup and every step of the way. Great pictures and illustrations complement the explanations in this book. ( )

A fascinating book for any coffee lover!

Half of the book is dedicated to the coffee-related history, processes and preparation methods while another half focuses on particular countries growing coffee.

I think that the book stands for its name - "The World Atlas of Coffee". Well illustrated, painstakingly explaining every step from coffee history and tree types to the cup. Reading hardcopy is a pleasure because of its superb quality (even book cover resembles a coffee bean bag material).

Highly recommended for those, who consider coffee to be way more than the following quote from the book (it is lovely to notice the author's aversion to commodity coffees):

[...] a generic product from somewhere tropical; an efficient, if bitter, way to get caffeine into the bloodstream and to clear the mind in the morning.

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A fascinating and well-structured book. The only real gripe I had was the author's constant use of hyperbole: everything about coffee is "astonishing", "stunning", "truly excellent". The first two parts of the book (about cultivation and preparation) actually feel as if he should have devoted two whole books to the topics.
Still, a very worthwhile read! ( )

To be clear, I am a huuuuge fan of James Hoffman. There are fewer people in the industry who deserve such success as he has had. I cannot think of a better ambassador that could have sprung up for the sector. Humble, honest, kind, generous - this is not a man out for riches and glory. And he can think for himself and produce everything he does at a perfectionist level to boot. God bless James Hoffman.

Having said that, I don't really know if this book will do anything for anyone who has worked in coffee for a couple years or more. Its scope is enormous, and so its content remains rather introductory. Half of the book is a review of global origins. It is striking, however, that James himself long long ago steered his roaster away from focus on national origins, for being too general a category. Instead, he tries to focus more on farm- and batch-level flavour profiles, which, once one thinks about it, makes eminently more sense. He has callout boxes for each national origin in the Atlas, giving a summary of a stereotypical flavour profile for coffees from that country: one third of them must be extremely couched, and another third read as generic "one can find all kinds of flavour profiles here."

Taken together, it is a very useful introduction - it is all still in there: how to get good coffee from a Moka pot, why Kenyan coffees have funny letters next to them, how Qishr and cascara are really the same thing... and yet, anyone in coffee will already know those things. This may not, therefore, be the world's most value-adding book. But it is beautiful. And it is true that whatever he does do, he does it better than anyone else. And owning this book has been a rite of passage for many newbies. Who would I be to knock it too hard? ( )