Why is drinking coffee so compulsive, and controversial? Mike Williams explores the spread of coffee drinking, and why its production, and consumption, matters so much around the globe.

He hears about coffee’s dark origins as a mystical drink, its social function in café societies, and its recent spread through trends such as ‘Seattle coffee culture’. Are tea-drinking cultures willing to be converted? And, as producing nations like Brazil, face huge variations in world prices and the long-term threat of climate change, what does coffee’s future look like?

(Image: Hands holding coffee beans. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)