Mmm, coffee!

Everything you wanted to know and more about java is in Michaele Weissman’s steamy new pageturner, “God in a Cup,” reviewed by Salon.

The book is also everything you wanted to know and more about the obsessive hunt for the perfect cup.

And, it also tells you that things like fair wages for coffee farmers do work:

The third-wave coffee guys, happily unfettered by degrees from Wharton, decided the only way to ensure that farmers earned a decent living was to change the way the specialty business is run. Instead of buying low and selling high, they decided the specialty coffee business had to run on a model that said: Buy high and sell high. These guys — and many older people and women who operate at the high end of the specialty business — are totally committed to increasing what quality-oriented coffee farmers earn. The only way to do this, they say, is to pay more and charge more.

But, that doesn’t necessarily include the touted Fair Trade program:

The irony is that, as a social justice program, Fair Trade ain't that great. To participate in Fair Trade programs, coffee farmers and coffee roasters both pay pretty significant fees.

But, it is a sort of backup insurance in case coffee prices collapse.

Anyway, it sounds like a great book, even if a bit higher than I am on the coffee snob level.