The Various Flavours Of Coffee
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
It is 1895. Robert Wallis, would-be poet, bohemian and impoverished dandy, accepts a commission from coffee merchant Samuel Pinker to categorise the different tastes of coffee - and encounters Pinker's free-thinking daughters, Philomenia, Ada and Emily. As romance blossoms with Emily, Robert realises that the Muse and marriage may not be incompatible after all.
Sent to Abyssinia to make his fortune in the coffee trade, he becomes obsessed with a negro slave girl, Fikre. He decides to use the money he has saved to buy her from her owner - a decision that will change not only his own life, but the lives of the three Pinker sisters . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Food aficionado Capella (The Food of Love) brews a tale of a young poet-turned-coffee-expert in 19th-century England. Robert Wallis, a lazy 20-something poet, meets a man in an artists' cafe and soon has a job. With his talent for over-description, Wallis is the perfect employee for Samuel Pinker, a coffee merchant wanting to create a guide to the world's coffee beans. Unfortunately, Wallis falls short trying to woo Pinker's daughter Emily with charming "epigrams" and his oversized ego. To spare his daughter from scandal, Pinker sends Wallis on a journey around the world, and the real story begins. Political issues of the time from the slave trade to women's rights provide the backdrop for Wallis's expedition. Navigating a series of unpredictable challenges, Wallis transforms from an apathetic charmer to a poised young man. Despite the lack of food details prevalent in Capella's earlier work coffee doesn't have quite the same appeal the surprising plot twists and authentic love story will make this a crowd pleaser.
