Start Your Own Coffee & Tea Store (Start Your Own Business) (ISBN 0136032753)

Perhaps the biggest waste of a tree yet known!:
The paper used to publish this book could have better served mankind by burning in a forest fire. Sorry for the harsh review but there is no good excuse for a quality publisher to put out such a generic useless book - Bill Anderson.

worst book I've bought:
The first line of the preface should tell you everything you need to know about this book: "Start Your Own Coffee and Tea Store is the result of many hours of in-depth research into the mail order industry." Uhh... okay. You'll quickly discover that this is a generic book tweaked just a bit for the coffee business. You'll find anecdotes about carpenters, wildly varying numbers about the profitability of this business, and such sage advice as, "Although it is still possible to rent telephones through certain telephone companies, the best bet is to buy your own. They are inexpensive, come in a variety of styles and colors, and are generally covered by a warranty." The information in here is dated (1994) and, given the inconsistencies of dollar figures from chapter to chapter, I have no idea if it was ever accurate. Despite the listing in Amazon.com, nobody had the courage to even sign their name to this book -- there's no author listed anywhere, neither on the cover nor anywhere inside. I'm planning to return this book, if I can. Given that there were some marks in it when I purchased it, I'm pretty sure someone else had bought and returned it before me.

Okay for a general book:
This book was good in the general starting a business vein. However, it really does not deal in real depth with the actual coffee/tea business. A bit of a disappointment.

It's not awful, but...:
I don't disagree with the negative reviews this book's gotten, but I think it needs elaboration. If you've never run (or started) a small business before, this is an -okay- intro to various concepts you'll need. Better has been published since 1994, & there's almost no depth. To add insult, of the 243 pages only 60 really have anything to do with starting a coffee/tea retail operation. If you're thinking of getting this, save your money & read _Start & Run a Coffee Bar_ (Matzen & Harrison), which makes an effort to actually address vital stuff like sanitation & how to make a decent espresso.

Tea & Coffee:
Not bad, though I found others a bit better. It is a bit difficult to read some of the information and equate that to practical use. However, the section on teas is excellent, Not being a tea drinker, I found that helpful.