That cup of coffee you sip at your breakfast table, desk, or café comes from far away. It was grown in Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, the Ivory Coast, or one of a hundred over coffee-producing lands on five continents. It is a palpable and long-standing manifestation of globalization.
For 500 years coffee has been grown in tropical countries for consumption in temperate regions, linking peoples of different lands and continents by trade, investment, immigration, conquest, and cultural and religious diffusion.
There is a world history in your cup.
The Global Coffee Economy: Coffee and Global Development, Introduction. Topik and Clarence-Smith (2003), pg 1
BEFORE THE BEAN 