21^st Century Coffee: A Guide brings coffee expert Kenneth Davids' seasoned, accessible writing voice and over 40 years of coffee experience to a detailed, up-to-date introduction to virtually everything about coffee, particularly the game-changing new developments that have taken place over the past two decades. These are developments Davids has witnessed (and often influenced) week by week and cup by cup over the past 25 years as co-founder and editor of CoffeeReview.com.

Softcover, 8.5 X 11 inch page format, 290 pages, nearly 200 color photos, maps and illustrations.

Davids' three earlier books on coffee, including Coffee: A Guide to Buying Brewing & Enjoying (5 editions starting in 1975; nearly 250,000 copies sold) and Home Coffee Roasting: Romance & Revival (2 editions), helped establish coffee as a specialty beverage. This latest book carries the reader deep into the dynamic developments that are shaping specialty coffee today, from coffee farmer to coffee roaster to kitchen to the cup.

It includes:

-- A lucid, cut-to-the-chase history of coffee, including its recent emergence as a complex and refined specialty beverage

-- A friendly but thorough introduction to coffee tasting, coffee cupping and coffee evaluation

-- Detailed chapters on coffee tree variety and coffee processing methods

-- Coffee growing regions presented in more coffee-specific detail than ever before in a single volume, including a coffee atlas of 26 maps

-- An overview of coffee's environmental and socio-economic issues, including discussions of direct trade coffee, fair trade coffee, organic coffee and controversies around defining shade grown coffee

-- A detailed overview of how coffee affects our health and well-being, and advice on how to maximize its sensory pleasures and health benefits without incurring

"Many have written about coffee over the past few decades, but only Kenneth Davids has been involved as a writer and full participant spanning the early 1970's to the present. 21st Century Coffee: A Guide is the latest book from this coffee explorer, and it is his best, written with clarity on the ever-expanding world of coffee today."

-- George Howell, specialty coffee pioneer and innovator and recipient of the Specialty Coffee Association's Lifetime Achievement Award