Discover how coffee shaped the economic destiny of early America. Coffee Nation traces this transformative commodity from Caribbean and South American plantations through colonial coffeehouses to the thriving import-export businesses of the nineteenth-century United States. Historian Michelle Craig McDonald reveals how coffee's profitability — built on enslaved labor and Atlantic trade networks — contradicts the nation's independence narrative. From exotic luxury to American staple, coffee's rise illuminates the hidden connections between daily consumption and global commerce, challenging what we thought we knew about the Revolution and early American success.