Solid book on coffee but very brief. My favorite part was about third wave/specialty coffee and the different intricacies about direct vs. fair trade coffee.

Optional read for class, it was a concise History of Japan.

Read all of the second half of the book, gave really cool insights on coffee advertising and the United States' relationship to coffee. I thought the developments about ethical coffee in this book is very relevant today and would love to research more about how the coffee industry has hopefully improved in the past decade.

Really concise book about coffee with great visuals and insights into different coffee regions.

God in a Cup is about Weissmans travels and her shared experiences with the Rockstars of the third wave coffee industry. If you are interested in learning about how third wave coffee developed in the early 2000s and who the founders of counterculture coffee, intelligentsia, and Stumptown led the industry, this book is great at that! Weissman is a complete outsider to the coffee world. I was surprised that while covering the biggest coffee event in the world she hadn't cupped coffee a single time before? Also, it seems that most of her conversations with each founder was about teaching her the very basics of coffee. This book extensively covers different countries and the people in the coffee world, but has an extremely shallow covering terms roasting/brewing/her own personal nuanced insights of the coffee she tasted while traveling.

I'm conflicted on how to feel about the book but it was really enjoyable. Almost dropped it because a character is such an incel, but his behavior is recognized and mocked hilariously.

The Making of A Chef is a detailed look into the Culinary Institute of America through the eyes of Michael Ruhlman. He self identifies as a journalist more than as a chef which leads into an interesting conversation of what it means to be a chef, who can be a chef and how does one becomes a chef. He covers a wide array of the people he meets and their backstory, with his various relationships being my favorite part of the book. How other people grow and mature over their own struggles at culinary school is the high point but the monotony of the book sometimes sours the whole experience.

Reading the book just felt like a list. Names, ingredients, recipes, actions all seem to be repeated over and over again and filled a good amount of the content. I give it a 3 out of 5.