The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella (2008)
To learn about the coffee trade in the 19th century world was interesting, plus having a very randy main character gives Anthony Capella’s newest novel two reasons why it shouldn’t be missed. Robert Wallis, an impoverished poet, is offered a job by coffee merchant Samuel Pinker to compose a “vocabulary of coffee.”
Wallis falls in love with the owner’s daughter while writing and is sent to Africa for five years to establish a coffee plantation with the understanding he then can return and marry Emily, the daughter. His lustful urges change his life in Africa and his future as well. Robert returns to an England of women suffragettes and coffee barons and once again his fate has been altered. This is delicious, sensual work of fiction. Don’t miss it.
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