Book Excerpt for the Day

    Arab traders first brought coffee from its native Africa to Europe sometime before 1500.  It took over a century for it to catch on, but by the mid-1600s, coffee houses were well established in England and throughout Europe.  A charming story circulated about an Ethiopian goatherd whose goats are the fruit of a coffee shrub and were so energized that they jumped and frolicked for the rest of the day and didn’t sleep that night.  Although this was probably nothing but a tall tale recited by merchants, it persisted well into the nineteenth century.  The fact that a plant could allow people to go without sleep was considered a major scientific breakthrough.

    (from The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart)

  8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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