QRB CoffeeGrowingProcessingSustainableProduction

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[Book Review: Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable

Production: A Guidebook for Growers, Processors, Traders, and
Researchers]
Article in The Quarterly Review of Biology · December 2005

DOI: 10.1086/501284
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484 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY Volume 80
applauded. Although not comprehensive in depth that deals with Green Coffee Defects (Wintgens)
or breadth, this book is valuable in providing con- includes over 70 photographs that cover every pos-
cise but accessible reviews of many of the major sible type of damage to the bean. Inclusion of these
areas of plant lipid research. images makes identification of damage quite easy
Daniel V Lynch, Biology, Williams College, Wil- for those interested in learning more about grad-
liamstown, Massachusetts ing coffee. The 110-page chapter Harvesting and
Green Coffee Processing (Brando) is an outstand-
ing contribution, which covers the fate of the cof-
Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable
fee berry from the time it is harvested until the
Production: A Guidebook for Growers, Pro- green coffee bean is bagged. The information pre-
cessors, Traders, and Researchers. sented includes harvesting methods (manual and
Edited by Jean Nicolas Wintgens. Weinheim (Ger- mechanical), processing (dry, semidry, and wet),
many): Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH. $370.00. lv Ⳮ 976 drying, cleaning, hulling, grading, and bagging,
p; ill.; index. ISBN: 3-527-30731-1. 2004. among others. A chapter on Botany and Genetics
The black wine that we call coffee is the final prod- of Coffee (Charrier and Eskes) presents very useful
uct in a long chain of events that take place mostly information on live coffee germplasm collections
in the tropics. Growing and harvesting coffee is the throughout the world and on the genetic diversity
main source of livelihood for more than 100 mil- and phylogenetic relationships among various Cof-
lion people throughout the world, most of which fea species.
have never tasted the magic brew produced Overall, this book is an excellent and welcome
through their efforts. Assiduous coffee drinkers are addition to the coffee literature. It belongs side by
fascinated by this beverage and consume it as a side with W H Ukers’s 1922 classic All About Coffee
pick-me-up or simply to enjoy the various flavors (New York: Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Com-
and aromas, which some swear also serve to en- pany) and Sivetz and Desrosier’s Coffee Technology
hance brain power. Witness the famous Hungarian (1979. Westport (CT): AVI Publishing Company).
mathematician Alfréd Rényi and his famous quote Fernando E Vega, Silver Spring, Maryland
(erroneously attributed to Paul Erdös): “A mathe-
matician is a machine for converting coffee into
theorems.” Witness also Beethoven, who meticu- Guide to Tendrillate Climbers of Costa Rican
lously counted 60 coffee beans to brew his cup of Mountains.
coffee (A F Schindler. 1996. Beethoven as I Knew By Alexander Krings and Richard R Braham. Ames
Him. Mineola (NY): Dover Publications). (Iowa): Blackwell Publishing Professional. $99.99. viii
For coffee producing countries throughout the Ⳮ 182 p; ill.; index. ISBN: 0-8138-0758-1. 2005.
world, growing, harvesting, and processing coffee
involves enormous amounts of experimentation, Florida Ethnobotany.
science, and hard work. This has resulted in thou- By Daniel F Austin; illustrated by Penelope N Hony-
sands of scientific papers and hundreds of books. church, Priscilla Fawcett, Vivian Frazier, Regina O
Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable Production suc- Hughes, and others. Boca Raton (Florida): CRC Press.
cessfully brings together in a single volume an $149.95. xxii Ⳮ 909 p Ⳮ 16 pl; ill.; index. ISBN:
enormous wealth of information related to coffee. 0-8493-2332-0. 2004.
Wintgens has recruited over 30 scientists from Bel- At 909 pages, Florida Ethnobotany is an exceptional
gium, Switzerland, France, England, Japan, Mex- reference. There are no other published works for
ico, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Malaysia, and has over- this region that compare in number of species de-
seen the gargantuan task of editing 36 chapters scribed or level of detail provided. The volume in-
that are separated into six parts: Growing; Pests cludes descriptions of nearly 900 species of plants,
and Diseases; Harvesting and Processing; Storage, which is approximately one-third of the flowering
Shipment, Quality; Economics; and Data and In- species native to Florida. Whereas some of these
formation. The topics covered are quite diverse, species are restricted to Florida, many more occur
and include basic information on the coffee plant, throughout the southeastern United States, the Ca-
genetics and botany, insect pests, plant diseases, ribbean, or are pantropical in their distribution.
nematodes, irrigation, fertilization, propagation, This work draws from the knowledge of many in-
breeding, pruning, organic certification and sus- dividuals, and Austin acknowledges a long list of
tainability, frost damage, economics, harvesting, botanists, anthropologists, linguists, and others
storage, and processing, among others. who contributed information to this book.
One of the most appealing features of the book Plants are organized alphabetically by genus
is the hundreds of color photographs, tables, and rather than grouped by family, which simplifies the
illustrations that complement the text. A chapter search for specific plants of interest. Each plant de-
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[Book Review: Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable

Article in The Quarterly Review of Biology · December 2005

Coffee berry borer View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

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