A romance from the man's viewpoint. It's a bit predictable in places but this story of Robert Wallis, a struggling poet who accepts a commission from a coffee merchant, Pinker, to help compose a vocabulary of coffee, a way of describing the tastes, smells and other aspects of coffee. Along with him Pinker's Daughter Emily work on this and find themselves attracted.
Pinker decides to send Robert off to see if he can succeed and if Emily will "get over" her attraction to him. He sends him to manage a coffee plantation in Africa. There Robert meets Fikre, a beautyful black slave, and falls in love. But things become more complicated and Robert finds himself in difficulty.
This is quite an interesting story, if a little predictable, the characters occasionally seem to be going through the motions without any real feeling of depth. I liked it but didn't love it, it's nearly a 4* read but not quite for me.
