Coffeeland - Augustine Sedgewick

'Thoroughly engrossing ... his literary gifts and prodigious research make for a deeply satisfying reading experience studded with narrative surprise, hopping back and forth between El Salvador and the wider world' Michael Pollan, The Atlantic

Coffee is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of the global economy and the world's most popular drug. The very word 'coffee' is one of the most widespread on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's brilliant new history tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's 400-year transformation into an everyday necessity.

The story is one that few coffee drinkers know. It centres on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of nineteenth-century Manchester, founded one of the world's great coffee dynasties. In the process, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality and violence.

The book follows coffee from the Hill family plantations into the supermarkets, kitchens and work places of the United States, and finally into today's omnipresent cafés. Sedgewick reveals the unexpected consequences of the rise of coffee, which reshaped large areas of the tropics, transformed understandings of energy, and ultimately made us dependent on a drug served in a cup.

Free Freight is offered on New Zealand deliverable orders of over $300.

Our shipping rates are based on the cost of your combined purchases.

As a general rule, orders will be dispatched from our Queenstown store, on the next business day after payment is received. Sometimes, we might achieve same day dispatch, however this is not guaranteed. All orders are freighted via standard security freight, utilising several different Third Party couriers. The courier used will depend on product ordered and the delivery address. Dispatch will usually take 1-3 business days from leaving our store. Freight for items/destinations outside of normal regions, should be negotiated prior to dispatch.

Click and Collect - With online purchases, the customer has an option to personally collect from our NZSHRED store at 19 Shotover Street, Queenstown. These purchases are freight & handling free-of-charge.

Please note all solid Watersports boards (eg: Paddleboards, Surfboards, Wakeboards & Skates) are generally Click and Collect ONLY. We can on occasions quote on freighting of these to New Zealand destinations. This cost will be 100% incurred by the customer. 

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