Here are 100 books that The Physics of Filter Coffee fans have personally recommended if you like The Physics of Filter Coffee. Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Coffee Life in Japan

James Hoffmann Author Of How To Make The Best Coffee At Home

From my list on coffee lovers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been working in coffee for nearly 20 years, and teaching people about coffee for most of that. I love sharing how interesting, diverse, and fun the world of coffee is, and I want people to enjoy and value the coffee they drink a little more. It is a passion and a career that’s taken me around the world, and continues to reinforce the idea that just a little effort or interest in your morning coffee has surprisingly large rewards. The books on this list inspired my own passion for coffee and I hope they do the same for you.

James' book list on coffee lovers

James Hoffmann Why James loves this book

This deeper exploration of coffee culture in Japan, a place we all associate with tea, is an interesting and surprising read. The author’s time in Japan serves as the backbone for exploring aspects of gender, perfectionism, and how the cafe in Japan helps people stay punctual.

By Merry White ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Coffee Life in Japan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This fascinating book - part ethnography, part memoir - traces Japan's vibrant cafe society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White's book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how…


If you love The Physics of Filter Coffee...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee

James Hoffmann Author Of How To Make The Best Coffee At Home

From my list on coffee lovers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been working in coffee for nearly 20 years, and teaching people about coffee for most of that. I love sharing how interesting, diverse, and fun the world of coffee is, and I want people to enjoy and value the coffee they drink a little more. It is a passion and a career that’s taken me around the world, and continues to reinforce the idea that just a little effort or interest in your morning coffee has surprisingly large rewards. The books on this list inspired my own passion for coffee and I hope they do the same for you.

James' book list on coffee lovers

James Hoffmann Why James loves this book

The speciality coffee industry is now a mature global part of coffee culture, but this book captures the early excitement around it as it burst onto the global stage. How coffee companies sought out and bought coffee was completely rewritten during this time, and this book makes for a fascinating read.

By Michaele Weissman ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked God in a Cup as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Can a cup of coffee reveal the face of God? Can it become the holy grail of modern-day knights errant who brave hardship and peril in a relentless quest for perfection? Can it change the world? These questions are not rhetorical. When highly prized coffee beans sell at auction for $50, $100, or $150 a pound wholesale (and potentially twice that at retail), anything can happen. In God in a Cup, journalist and late-blooming adventurer Michaele Weissman treks into an exotic and paradoxical realm of specialty coffee where the successful traveler must be part passionate coffee connoisseur, part ambitious entrepreneur,…


Book cover of The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee

James Hoffmann Author Of How To Make The Best Coffee At Home

From my list on coffee lovers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been working in coffee for nearly 20 years, and teaching people about coffee for most of that. I love sharing how interesting, diverse, and fun the world of coffee is, and I want people to enjoy and value the coffee they drink a little more. It is a passion and a career that’s taken me around the world, and continues to reinforce the idea that just a little effort or interest in your morning coffee has surprisingly large rewards. The books on this list inspired my own passion for coffee and I hope they do the same for you.

James' book list on coffee lovers

James Hoffmann Why James loves this book

This is the book that started my obsession with coffee. It is really a travel book, using the spread of coffee from Ethiopia through to the rest of the world as its guide. It’s a fun read, and fascinating to see the way coffee was become entwined into so many different cultures in many different ways.

By Stewart Lee Allen ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Devil's Cup as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee, indeed, the substance that drives history? From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous coffeehouse in Calcutta, the drinking spot for two of India’s three Nobel Prize winners ... from Parisian salons and cafés where the French Revolution was born, to the roadside diners and chain restaurants of the good…


If you love Jonathan Gagne...

Book cover of Sexy Selfie Nation: Standing Up for Yourself in Today's Toxic, Sexist Culture

Sexy Selfie Nation by Leora Tanenbaum,

The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.

Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…

Book cover of The Professional Barista's Handbook: An Expert Guide to Preparing Espresso, Coffee, and Tea

James Hoffmann Author Of How To Make The Best Coffee At Home

From my list on coffee lovers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been working in coffee for nearly 20 years, and teaching people about coffee for most of that. I love sharing how interesting, diverse, and fun the world of coffee is, and I want people to enjoy and value the coffee they drink a little more. It is a passion and a career that’s taken me around the world, and continues to reinforce the idea that just a little effort or interest in your morning coffee has surprisingly large rewards. The books on this list inspired my own passion for coffee and I hope they do the same for you.

James' book list on coffee lovers

James Hoffmann Why James loves this book

It is hard to pick just one of Scott Rao’s books as they have become the industry standard. If you want to learn more about how the best cafes approach coffee brewing, to steal the best bits for your home brewing, then this is a really great place to start.

By Scott Rao ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Professional Barista's Handbook as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

FROM THE AUTHOR: When I began in the coffee business fourteen years ago, I read every book I could find about coffee. After reading all of those books, however, I felt as if I hadn’t learned much about how to make great coffee. My coffee library was chock-full of colorful descriptions of brewing styles, growing regions, and recipes, with a few almost-unreadable scientific books mixed in. I would have traded in all of those books for one serious, practical book with relevant information about making great coffee in a café. Fourteen years later, I still haven’t found that book. I…


Book cover of Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable Production: A Guidebook for Growers, Processors, Traders and Researchers

Shawn Steiman Author Of The Little Coffee Know-It-All: A Miscellany for Growing, Roasting, and Brewing, Uncompromising and Unapologetic

From my list on coffee books by academics that anyone can understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

Coffee was a hobby that went off the rails. I moved to Hawai‘i to study coffee horticulture in graduate school and became a generalist coffee scientist by the end of it. My coffee library contains over 100 books, and it is incomplete! I approach coffee as an academic, but I’ve owned some retail companies that have taught me to talk and think about coffee in a way that doesn’t scare people off. Coffee is what I love, and I love talking about it with other people.

Shawn's book list on coffee books by academics that anyone can understand

Shawn Steiman Why Shawn loves this book

It can be a challenge for academics to write books that are everyday-useful to practitioners.

I love this book because it is written as a guide for farmers. Thus, anyone can read it and learn about coffee biology, production, processing, defects, and a slew of other topics without needing a technical background. I always start looking for production-relevant material with this book. It has never led me astray!

By Jean Nicolas Wintgens (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Coffee as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An outstanding and currently the only comprehensive handbook for the coffee-professional. 40 authors from the leading coffee-growing countries present the most recent technologies applied to coffee husbandry. The book features 900 carefully selected illustrations, 300 of these in full color, which substantiate the written text. The handbook provides basic guidelines and recommendations which are applicable everywhere rather than referring to any specific country. Added to this, the reader will find numerous data tables and an overview of relevant information sources.


Book cover of Coffee: A Global History

Robert W. Thurston Author Of Coffee: From Bean to Barista

From my list on US, China, Britain, France, and Nicaragua coffee.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have found coffee, or in fact just about any aspect of it, from pour-over to espresso, to be endlessly challenging and rewarding. My first visit to coffee farms was in 2004, to Ethiopia and Kenya. Since then I’ve been to dozens of farms in nine or ten countries. There is something about coffee people; they are wondrously generous about sharing their expertise, if they think you care and if you know the right questions to ask. Before going deeply into coffee, I was a professor of history, and I've continued to publish on topics as diverse as Stalin, the witch hunts in Europe and North America, and the body in the Anglosphere, 1880-1920.

Robert's book list on US, China, Britain, France, and Nicaragua coffee

Robert W. Thurston Why Robert loves this book

Jonathan, with whom I worked on an earlier book on coffee with authors from around the world, presents the history of coffee in a wonderfully readable way. His book is filled with charming and informative photos and graphics. A professor at the University of Hertfordshire and a truly nice guy, Jonathan is an expert above all on Italian coffee. He is in demand, particularly for talks on coffee’s past and present in Europe.

By Jonathan Morris ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Coffee as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Coffee is a global beverage: it is grown commercially on four continents, and consumed enthusiastically in all seven. There is even an Italian espresso machine on the International Space Station. Coffee's journey has taken it from the forests of Ethiopia to the fincas of Latin America, from Ottoman coffee houses to `Third Wave' cafes, and from the simple coffee pot to the capsule machine. In Coffee: A Global History, Jonathan Morris explains how the world acquired a taste for coffee, yet why coffee tastes so different throughout the world.

Morris discusses who drank coffee, as well as why and where,…


If you love The Physics of Filter Coffee...

Book cover of Crossing: A Chinese Family Railroad Novel

Crossing by Lisa Redfern,

Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad. 

Book cover of Scene of the Grind

Kate Damon Author Of Jury Duty is Murder

From my list on cozy mysteries with two or more amateur detectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I primarily write Western romance novels under the name Margaret Brownley. As much as I enjoy reading cozy mysteries, never did I think I could write one. I’m not a cat owner, and I’m not much of a cook, so I kind of figured that left me out of the cozy mystery business. But after a friend was sequestered for several weeks during a trial, it got me thinking. I go away for a week and come back two weeks behind. What happens to a juror who’s sequestered for weeks or months? Before I knew it, I was banging away at the computer. 

Kate's book list on cozy mysteries with two or more amateur detectives

Kate Damon Why Kate loves this book

I picked up the book because I found the title intriguing—and yes, I’m a coffee drinker. The book was every bit as fun as the title. Following her divorce, Roxy gives up her legal career and moves back to her hometown to begin life anew and follow her dream of owning a coffee shop.                 

Things take a dramatic turn when her aunt is accused of murder. Between pouring coffee, Roxy is now on a quest to prove her aunt innocent, and she needs all the help she can get. I loved the small-town charm and quirky characters. I have to admit, I found myself laughing out loud at times. The book has everything, including a cute dog, a hunky sheriff, and yummy-sounding recipes. Oh, yes, and don’t forget the coffee. 

By Tonya Kappes ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scene of the Grind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of the Global Coffee Trade

Shawn Steiman Author Of The Little Coffee Know-It-All: A Miscellany for Growing, Roasting, and Brewing, Uncompromising and Unapologetic

From my list on coffee books by academics that anyone can understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

Coffee was a hobby that went off the rails. I moved to Hawai‘i to study coffee horticulture in graduate school and became a generalist coffee scientist by the end of it. My coffee library contains over 100 books, and it is incomplete! I approach coffee as an academic, but I’ve owned some retail companies that have taught me to talk and think about coffee in a way that doesn’t scare people off. Coffee is what I love, and I love talking about it with other people.

Shawn's book list on coffee books by academics that anyone can understand

Shawn Steiman Why Shawn loves this book

I love this book because it is so depressing. This book does an amazing job of exploring and explaining the economics of the coffee industry, especially as it affects farmers. It paints a grim picture (hence the depression), and it does not try to sugarcoat anything. The global coffee industry is incredibly complex, and this book tries to explain it to us.

I struggled with some of the economic concepts (this book, too, opens with a deep dive into economic academia). However, for the most part, those struggles didn’t interfere with my understanding of the essential ideas in the book.

By Karl Wienhold ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cheap Coffee as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Brian Cowan Author Of The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse

From my list on the history of coffee and coffeehouses.

Why am I passionate about this?

I went to college in Portland, Oregon when the Pacific northwest’s coffee boom was just getting started. My love of coffee turned academic as I began to research and write what would turn out to be a prize-winning book on the early history of coffee and coffeehouses in Great Britain: The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (2005). I’ve continued to publish articles on coffee history and the history of sociability ever since, and I regularly teach a research seminar on the history of coffee at McGill University. Now I serve as president of the board of directors for an international research group on the history of sociability.

Brian's book list on the history of coffee and coffeehouses

Brian Cowan Why Brian loves this book

Mintz’s book is about sugar, but it is still a key work in the history of coffee. It served as one of the major inspirations for my own study of the reception of coffee in early modern Britain. Sugar was a key ingredient in coffee by the later seventeenth century and would become a staple in the hot drinks consumed by the English working class. Mintz shows us how this symbiotic relationship between sugar and coffee developed, and he places the construction of an Atlantic slave system and the industrial revolution at the heart of his story. This is a classic work of both anthropology and history; it inspired a whole new way of thinking about the Atlantic world and the history of consumption at a time when both of those fields were still newborn. 

By Sidney W. Mintz ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Sweetness and Power as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets

In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial…


If you love Jonathan Gagne...

Book cover of Child of Vanris

Child of Vanris by Nikki McCormack,

At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…

Book cover of Denver Then and Now

Lisa J. Shultz Author Of Essential Denver: Discovery and Exploration Guide

From my list on to explore Denver for newcomers or locals.

Why am I passionate about this?

A few years ago, I began rediscovering my hometown of Denver as I walked neighborhoods and revisited landmarks of the city that I had not seen since I was a kid. Essential Denver highlights the fabulous things the city offers from my perspective as a Denver native. I encourage readers to explore Denver, plan outings, and become involved in the community. I hope this Denver book list sparks more interest in landmarks, treasures, and the history of Denver to ensure the city’s future is strong and vital. 

Lisa's book list on to explore Denver for newcomers or locals

Lisa J. Shultz Why Lisa loves this book

I like reading about Denver's history, but I love seeing pictures bring that history to life. This book shows old pictures of buildings and compares them with the present-day look. In some cases, beautiful old buildings no longer exist or have been drastically altered. This is a great coffee table book. 

By Joshua Dinar ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Denver Then and Now as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Celebrating America's favorite cityscapes, this series combines historic interest and contemporary beauty. Then and Now features fascinating archival photographs contrasted with specially commissioned, full-color images of the same scene today. A visual lesson in the historic changes of our greatest urban landscapes.


Book cover of Coffee Life in Japan
Book cover of God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee
Book cover of The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee

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