Coffee: A Dark History by Antony Wild (Fourth Estate, £18.99)

IN an age when there's a Starbucks on every corner and most of us wouldn't even venture outside the front door in the morning without a caffeine pick-me-up, it's hard to imagine a time when coffee didn't exist.

But three centuries ago, the equivalent of the morning Nescaf for the average Englishman was a couple of pints of weak beer - followed by a couple more for elevenses, lunch, dinner and supper.

Not so much a pick-me-up as a knock-me-down.

So, how did this bitter-tasting beverage come to take over our lives? Professional coffee taster Antony Wild is here to tell the tale - and what a tale it is.

First stop is 15th Century Arabia, where the first evidence of a caffeine habit pops up, thanks to Yemeni slavers, who had stumbled on a strange, stimulating berry in the highlands of Ethiopia.

What follows is a fascinating chronicle of coffee's slow percolation through the rest of the world, featuring a colourful cast of merchants, rogues, princes and explorers from an age when empires were being forged and global trade was taking off.

Although many details have been lost in the mists of time - just who did open up London's first coffee house? - what is beyond dispute is that when coffee does take hold here, its effect is dramatic.

Wild argues that the adoption of coffee-drinking transformed Britain from a nation of red-faced, muddle-headed rustics into a country of clear-thinkers, fired-up to take on the world.

It's perhaps no surprise that two enduring symbols of Britain's economic power, Lloyds of London and the Stock Exchange, had their origins in coffee houses, while many of our greatest thinkers and politicians formulated their theories and honed their skills in the same establishments.

But this masterful and exhaustive work is about much more than history.

We're also treated to eye-opening lessons in economics, ethics, culture and science, resulting in a comprehensive overview of a commodity that is second only to oil in its importance to world trade.

So fix yourself a double espresso and settle down for a highly stimulating read.

Ceri Vines