I ran into Mark Pendergast, the author of the awesome book, Uncommon Grounds. He was handing out fliers for a showing this evening for the documentary Black Coffee complete with a panel featuring Pendergast, Irene Angelico the writer and director of the film, Paul Rice from Transfair, Sara Bake-Crosby of Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting, Doug Welsh of Peet's Coffee, and Mark Romano of illycafe.

That's a pretty powerful lineup.

The film is being shown offsite, at the Oak Street Cinema at 8pm tonight (Sat May 3) (309 Oak Street S.E. if you're in town).

This documentary is easily the best film I've ever seen on the subject of coffee. It's also much more objective and wider in scope than the other "famous" coffee movie, Black Gold. Where Black Gold had a mission, an axe to grind, Black Coffee wanted to be more educational and informative, letting the viewer make their own conclusions instead of having it presented to them.

If you're in Canada, the DVD is available via Amazon.ca; apparently it will be available soon in the US as well.