Volume providing a brief history of coffee production and consumption around the world. Intended for dealers and consumers alike, the work contains chapters on coffee cultivation, preparation, the chemical analysis of coffee, and cultural approaches to coffee production in several countries including Brazil, Liberia, and Puerto Rico. The work concludes with an appendix containing letters written for the American Grocer which detail the author’s travels throughout the coffee plantations of the East Indies and through the coffee-consuming countries of Europe.

The work’s author, Francis B. Thurber (1842-1907), was a New York wholesale grocer and later a lawyer. In 1869 Thurber married Jeannette Meyer (1850-1946), founder of the National Conservatory of Music and organizer of the American Opera Company. Thurber's enterprise, Thurber, Whyland & Co., was a Manhattan grocery house with, at one time, the lofty reputation as the largest wholesale grocery in the world. In the work’s preface, Thurber cites his twenty years of experience as a coffee dealer and his worldwide travels as a testament to his authority on the subject.

Digitized content includes the volume’s front matter and illustrations.