The Monk of Mokha

This is a wonderful read about an amazing journey for one Yemeni American. This book has come out at a timely manner. I want to address the critic that stopped reading the book because of facts regarding Treasure Island. Both Dave Eggers and the critic are correct with dates: Treasure Island started to be built in 1936 (Dave’s date in the book) but wasn’t complete until later (critic’s date in the review). Please if you are going to write such a negative review and discourage people from reading, please be more careful in your facts as well. In any case, the story is amazing and this one area of the book should not stop anyone from reading it.

In 'The Monk of Mokha', Dave Eggers takes us on a modern-day swashbuckling adventure that starts almost uneventfully, in one of the roughest neighborhoods of San Francisco, before taking us to Yemen and the chaos that ensues therein. Our hero, aspiring coffee entrepreneur Mokhtar Alkhanshali, is a real-life Indiana Jones, always taking on his next task with gusto and bravado but ultimately getting backed into a corner at every turn. Like Indy, he uses his wits and sheer willpower (and a lot of luck!) to overcome every obstacle put in front of him.There were parts of this book that I just laughed out loud at and had to pause to regain my composure, and other parts where I just couldn't put the book down, wanting to know what happened next. Throughout I learned a lot about coffee but what I loved most is that the entire motivation of Mokhtar's journey is quite selfless - he wants a better life for Yemeni farmers, and Yemen in general. Like Mokhtar, I am a product of mixed identities, caught between East and West, and I appreciated how he leveraged his advantages and privilege to help people - his people - in Yemen.I think one of the great lessons of 'The Monk of Mokha' is not to be afraid to dream big, and not to give up on your dreams when things aren't going your way. In Mokhtar's story, you'll find a protagonist who is charming, determined, but ultimately, (and I hope he forgives me for saying this!) a little crazy. Not bad crazy. Good crazy. The kind of crazy that can change people's lives for the better. I believe that the people - like Mokhtar - who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who eventually do.In 'The Monk of Mokha', you'll find several cups of crazy. And it will leave you wanting more.

Dave Eggers has struck gold once again with the extraordinary story of the Yemeni-American entrepreneur Mokhtar Alkhanshali, "a poor kid from [San Francisco's] Tenderloin who now has found some significant success as a coffee importer." But that description barely scratches the surface. Mokhtar is the man who introduced now-highly-praised coffee from Yemen to the American market. And he did so after surviving an odyssey through war-torn territory worthy of Ulysses himself.A civil war few outsiders can understandFew Americans can locate Yemen on a map, even though the country is frequently in the news. (It's located at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula across a narrow strait from the tiny African nation of Djibouti. Yemen lies just south of the much larger and richer nation of Saudi Arabia.) A brutal civil war has been underway in the country since 2014. The war pits an ethnic group called the Houthis, who back the ousted former president, against those who opposed him, backed by Saudi Arabia. Saudi warplanes (purchased from the USA) have been dropping bombs (also purchased from the USA) on Houthis and anyone in their vicinity for nearly four years. This has resulted in a massive famine and other deprivations affecting three-quarters of the nation's 28 million people, not to mention thousands of deaths. The already desperately poor country is a shambles. And as if civil war and famine aren't enough, Yemen is host to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most powerful remnant of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, and ISIS. Despite all this, Mokhtar Alkhanshali has managed to grow, process, and export many tons of high-quality coffee from Yemen to the United States.The history of coffee began in YemenEthiopia, the huge country across the Red Sea from Yemen, lays claim to having originated coffee production in the 9th century based on a flimsy legend of a goatherd who chewed on the beans and got high. But the historical evidence is stronger for Yemen's contention that the industry was launched five hundred years ago by "the Monk of Mokha." Mokha (or Mocha) is a port on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. There, according to legend, a Sufi holy man named Ali Ibn Omar al-Shadhili "first brewed the bean into a semblance of what we now recognize as coffee." Over the centuries, cultivation of the coffee plant moved (mostly by outright theft) from Yemen to many other countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Meanwhile, coffee production steadily declined in Yemen both in quantity and quality. When Mokhtar became animated by the obsession to import "specialty" (high-quality) coffee from Yemen, the country's output had gained a reputation for highly uneven quality and often simply bad taste. Coffee farmers there had been abandoning the crop in droves."I will resurrect the art of Yemeni coffee and restore it to prominence throughout the world," Mokhtar had confided to a friend. Astonishingly, that is exactly what he achieved. Fleeing Yemen with a colleague, he personally carried "the first coffee to leave the port of Mokha in eighty years. . . . By July 2017, Port of Mokha coffee was available . . . all over North America, Japan, Paris and Brazil . . . [and] the Coffee Review awarded" one variety of Yemeni coffee "the highest score issued in the publication's twenty-year history."Another superior example of Dave Eggers nonfictionEggers' account of Mokhtar's experience reads like an adventure story. His description of the history of coffee and of its cultivation and processing is equally fascinating. This book is, in truth, another outstanding example of Dave Eggers nonfiction.

I love the way Dave Eggers tells a larger story through a personal lens. As with Valentino Dent (What is the What) and Abdulrahman Zeitoun, he has taken the life of Mokhtar Alkhanshali and crafted it into a book so readable and yet so informative and true it becomes a real page turner. His books are proof of his extraordinary empathy, and this one is no exception. Mokhtar is a young man of Yemeni heritage, who grew up on the mean streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin, but his family was supportive if puzzled by some of his choices. He held many low paying jobs, never giving up hope that he would discover his calling even when at his lowest. It was a chance text from a friend that sent him across the street from where he was a doorman (lobby ambassador) to the Hills Bros. building on the Embarcadero, where he saw the twenty-foot statue of a man in full Yemeni dress grasping a cup of coffee to his lips. Despite the flowers on the statue's thobe (no self respecting native would ever wear that), he was struck by the relationship to the coffee cup, which led him to study about the origin of history of coffee and the role Yemen played in its manufacture. I'm not giving anything away by revealing that he eventually finds success as an importer of coffee from Yemen, but it is that history, his experiences in discovery and marketing, and his reasons for developing the industry in his native land that make this book a real Eggers work. High recommend.

This is an extraordinary true story that is more compelling and incredible than most fiction. I really thought it was a novel - and if it was, it would be an excellent one. Eggers' writing is so good and entertaining that the reading experience is much closer to a novel, although some parts are more fact-heavy than others. The subject of the book is Mokhtar, a young American who finds his calling in reviving the fortunes of Yemeni coffee. Unfortunately he chooses a time of great politic unrest to start his project, and finds himself caught up in the civil war. However despite his life being at risk, he remains determined to improve the lot of coffee farmers in the wartorn country and goes to unbelievable lengths to set up his export business.It would make a fantastic film - it's got all the excitement, and Hollywood would love the rags to riches story. Mokhtar is a wonderful character - both ordinary and extraordinary, and shows how an average person can achieve incredible things in the right circumstances. It's an inspiring story that shows sometimes real life can be better and stranger than fiction, and that happy endings can occur. Even in the midst of war and despair, hope and improvement are possible - and can be achieved by ordinary people.It's the most uplifting thing I've read in a long time, and I have nothing but admiration for the young man who set out to do something worthwhile, and wouldn't let anything stand in his way. I'd highly recommend this book, which is as pleasurable a read as any novel due to its fiction-like excitement and good writing,, especially if you're feeling down.

Having lived and worked in Yemen and experienced about a millionth of what Mokhtar must have, from a very different perspective, i found this book extremely convincing and authentic in its storytelling. It told a truth for many, and a reality that so many could never imagine, but showed the connectedness we all have through one thing or another.Really beautiful flow, read the whole book in a day, literally didn’t put it down except for lunch.Would recommend to anyone interested in Yemen, history, travel, culture or coffee :)

Little of the book describes the peoples of the Yemen or the troubles of the coffee dealer travelling amongst them. The book is not written by the traveller, but by an American who writes a lot of books.

This wasn't the easiest of reads bit worth persevering.How amazing what one man's vision can achieve. One man who has with the help of others helped the life of so many.I'm enlightened and encouraged.

If you want to know about coffee, Yemen and more this is a good read. Explains about the process and processing of coffee, the people and organisations behind the brew. Goes someway to explain the high price of specialist coffees