Café Cibales

This is the type of curious connection Tom Standage explores as he reviews human evolution through the beer goggles of what drinks were staple in the diet of humans.

The book is titled: "A History of the World in Six Glasses."
"Just as archaeologists divide history into different periods based on the use of different materials -- the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and so on -- it is also possible to divide world history into periods dominated by different drinks. Six beverages in particular -- beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola -- chart the flow of world history" explains Tom Standage.

Among his many provocative propositions, Standage suggests that after
"Western Europe began to emerge from an alcoholic haze that had lasted for centuries," at the same time that coffee was being introduced to the European marketplace. Evolving from beer to the crisp mental awareness provided by coffee might have been "coffee's contribution to the spirit of enlightenment."