A historical adventure novel based on a true story: how the Dutch stole coffee from the Turks – fast-paced and suspenseful
The year is 1683. Europe is in the grip of a new drug. Its name is kahve. It is in tremendous demand – and expensive, because the Ottomans have a monopoly on it. Which they strictly guard. Yet one young Englishman has an audacious plan: he wants to wangle the coffee beans from the Turks…
Europeans have long spurned the heathen brew, preferring to drink beer, but at the end of the 17th century Europe becomes addicted to coffee. Philosophers in London, spice merchants in Amsterdam and poets in Paris – they all meet in coffee houses and consume the beverage of the Enlightenment. But coffee is expensive. And those who try to smuggle it out of Mocha in Yemen are punished by death. The man who is still willing to risk it, regardless, is the young Obediah Chalon, an adventurer, dealer and rogue. After being ruined in the London stock market, he has every reason to commit suicide. Only a major deal – a really big one – can save him. And so he goes the whole hog: With the financial support of the Dutch East India Company, he assembles a team of international experts to steal coffee from the Turks. The spectacular journey initially appears to be a success, but then more and more powers start coming after them…
