Coffee Smuggler is an adventure based on the true story of Gabriel De Clieu, a French soldier who stole a coffee plant from King Louis XV in 1723 and smuggled it to the island of Martinique. There was only one coffee plant in France, locked in the King's botanical garden. The King and nobles had refused De Clieu's petitions for a cutting of the plant, so De Clieu seduced a noble woman with a strange illness. She had access the royal doctor who secretly gave a cutting of the King's plant to De Clieu. With the plant in hand, De Clieu boarded the ill-fated ship Le Dromedaire and faced pirate attacks, a hurricane, and starvation in the doldrums to bring this precious plant back to his home on Martinique. From this one plant sprang millions of coffee trees and much of the Arabica coffee drunk in the world today.
