COFFEE TRIVIA
There
are about 30 milligrams of caffeine in the average chocolate bar, while a cup
of coffee contains around 100 to 150 milligrams.
Coffee
represents 75% of all the caffeine consumed in the United States.
Regular
coffee drinkers have about one-third less asthma symptoms than those non-coffee
drinkers based on Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.
A
scientific report form the University of California found that the steam rising
from a cup of coffee contains the same amounts of antioxidants as three
oranges. The antioxidants are heterocyclic compounds which prevents cancer and
heart disease. It's good for you!
Special
studies conducted about the human body revealed it will usually absorb up to
about 300 milligrams of caffeine at a given time. About 4 normal cups.
Additional amounts are just cast off, providing no further stimulation. Also,
the human body dissipates 20% of the caffeine in the system each hour.
The
word "tip" dates back to the old London coffeehouses. Conspicuously
placed brass boxes etched with the inscription, "To Insure
Promptness," encouraged customers to pay for efficient service. The
resulting acronym, TIP, has become a byword.
Lloyd's
of London began as Edward Lloyd's Coffeehouse.
Coffee
is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each
year.
Beethoven,
who was a coffee lover, was so particular about his coffee that he always
counted 60 beans each cup when he prepared his brew.
Until
the late 1800's, people roasted their coffee at home. Popcorn poppers and
stove-top frying pans were favored.
The
heavy tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773, which caused the "Boston
Tea Party," resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. Drinking
coffee was an expression of freedom.
In
early America, coffee was usually taken between meals and after dinner.
In
1900, coffee was often delivered door-to-door in the United States, by
horse-pulled wagons.
By
1850, the manual coffee grinder found its way to most upper middle class
kitchens of the U.S.
In
1670, Dorothy Jones of Boston was granted a license to sell coffee, and so
became the first American coffee trader.
Coffee
Recipe from: 'Kitchen Directory and American Housewife' (1844)
"Use
a tablespoonful ground to a pint of boiling water [less than a quarter of what
we would use today]. Boil in tin pot twenty to twenty-five minutes. If boiled
longer it will not taste fresh and lively. Let stand four or five minutes to
settle, pour off grounds into a coffee pot or urn.
Dark
roasted coffees actually have less caffeine than medium roasts. The longer a
coffee is roasted, the more caffeine burns off during the process.
When
a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.
Turks
began to roast and grind the coffee bean in the 14th Century, and some 300
years later, in the 1600's, the country had become the chief distributor of
coffee, with markets established around the world.
Raw
coffee beans, soaked in water and spices, are chewed like candy in many parts
of Africa.
Milk
as an additive to coffee became popular in the 1680's, when a French physician
recommended that cafe au lait be used for medicinal purposes.
Latte
is the Italian word for milk. So if you request a latte' in Italy, you'll be
served a glass of milk.
Coffee
was first known in Europe as Arabian wine. The word “coffee” comes from the
Arabic “kahwa” which means wine.
Jamaica
Blue Mountain is often regarded as the best coffee in the world.
Japan
ranks Number 3 in the world for coffee consumption.
Australians
consume 60% more coffee than tea, a six fold increase since 1940.
In
the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed
to keep his family's pot filled with coffee.
Scandinavia
has the world's highest per capita annual coffee consumption, 26.4 pounds.
Italy has an annual consumption per capita of only 10 pounds.
The
United States is the world's largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20
million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing one-third of all
coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee
(52%) The typical coffee drinker has 3.4 cups of coffee per day. That
translates into more than 450,000,000 cups of coffee daily.
An
acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That
amounts to approximately 2000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
Advertisements
for coffee in London in 1657 claimed that the beverage was a cure for scurvy,
gout and other ills.
After
the decaffeinating process, processing companies no longer throw the caffeine
away; they sell it to pharmaceutical companies.
After
they are roasted, and when the coffee beans begin to cool, they release about
700 chemical substances that make up the vaporizing aromas.
An
Arabica coffee tree can produce up to 12 pounds of coffee a year, depending on
soil and climate.
Before
roasting, some green coffee beans are stored for years, and experts believe
that certain beans improve with age, when stored properly.
Before
the first French cafe in the late 1700's, coffee was sold by street vendors in
Europe, in the Arab fashion. The Arabs were the forerunners of the sidewalk
espresso carts of today.
Brazil
accounts for almost 1/3 of the world's coffee production, producing over 3.3
billion pounds of coffee each year.
Caffeine
is on the International Olympic Committee list of prohibited substances.
Athletes who test positive for more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per
milliliter of urine may be banned from the Olympic Games. This level may be
reached after drinking about 5 cups of coffee.
Citrus
has been added to coffee for several hundred years.
Coffee
as a medicine reached its highest and lowest point in the 1600's in England.
Wild medical contraptions to administer a mixture of coffee and an assortment
of heated butter, honey, and oil, became treatments for the sick. Soon tea
replaced coffee as the national beverage.
Coffee
beans are similar to grapes that produce wine in that they are affected by the
temperature, soil conditions, altitude, rainfall, drainage and degree of
ripeness when picked.
Coffee
is generally roasted between 400F and 425F. The longer it is roasted, the
darker the roast. Roasting time is usually from ten to twenty minutes.
Coffee
is graded according to 3 criteria: Bean quality (Altitude and Species) Quality
of the preparation and Size of bean.
Coffee
is grown commercially in over forty-five countries throughout the world.
Coffee
lends its popularity to the fact that just about all flavors mix well with it.
Coffee
sacks are usually made of hemp and weigh approximately 132 pounds when they are
full of green coffee beans. It takes over 600,000 beans to fill a coffee sack.
Coffee
trees are evergreen and grow to heights above 15 feet but are normally pruned
to around 8 feet in order to facilitate harvesting.
Coffee
trees are self-pollinating
Coffee
trees produce highly aromatic, short-lived flowers producing a scent between
jasmine and orange. These blossoms produce cranberry-sized coffee cherries. It
takes four to five years to yield a commercial harvest.
Coffee,
along with beer and peanut butter, is on the national list of the "ten
most recognizable odors."
Coffee,
as a world commodity, is second only to oil.
Commercially
flavored coffee beans are flavored after they are roasted and partially cooled
to around 100 degrees. Then the flavors applied, when the coffee beans' pores
are open and therefore more receptive to flavor absorption.
During
the American Civil War the Union soldiers were issued eight pounds of ground
roasted coffee as part of their personal ration of one hundred pounds of food.
And they had another choice: ten pounds of green coffee beans.
During
World War II the U.S. government used 260 million pounds of instant coffee.
Finely
grinding coffee beans and boiling them in water is still known as "Turkish
Coffee." It is still made this way today in Turkey and Greece or anywhere
else Turkish Coffee is served.
Flavored
coffees are created after the roasting process by applying flavored oils
specially created to use on coffee beans.
Frederick
the great had his coffee made with champagne and a bit of mustard.
Hard
Bean means the coffee was grown at an altitude above 5000 feet.
Hawaii
is the only state of the United States in which coffee is commercially grown.
Hawaii features an annual Kona Festival, coffee picking contest. Each year the
winner becomes a state celebrity. In Hawaii coffee is harvested between
November and April.
Hills
Brothers Ground Vacuum Packed Coffee was first introduced in 1900.
Iced
coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.
If
you like your espresso coffee sweet, you should use granulated sugar, which
dissolves more quickly, rather than sugar cubes; white sugar rather than brown
sugar or candy; and real sugar rather than sweeteners which alter the taste of
the coffee.
In
1727, as a result of seedlings smuggled from Paris, coffee plants first were
cultivated in Brazil. Brazil is presently by far the world's largest producer
of coffee.
In
1990, over 4 billion dollars of coffee was imported into the United States.
In
Italy, espresso is considered so essential to daily life that the price is
regulated by the government.
In
Japan, coffee shops are called Kissaten.
In
Sumatra, workers on coffee plantations gather the world's most expensive coffee
by following a gourmet marsupial who consumes only the choicest coffee beans.
By picking through what he excretes, they obtain the world's most expensive
coffee -'Kopi Luwak', which sells for over $100 per pound.
In
the 14th century, the Arabs started to cultivate coffee plants. The first
commercially grown and harvested coffee originated in the Arabian Peninsula
near the port of Mocha.
In
the last three centuries, 90% of all people living in the Western world have
switched from tea to coffee.
In
the year 1763, there were over 200 coffee shops in Venice.
In
the year 1790, there were two firsts in the United States; the first wholesale
coffee roasting company, and the first newspaper advertisement featuring
coffee.
Irish
cream and Hazelnut are the most popular whole bean coffee flavorings.
It
was during the 1600's that the first coffee mill made its debut in London.
Italians
do not drink espresso during meals. It is considered to be a separate event and
is given its own time.
Italy
now has over 200,000 coffee bars, and still growing.
Large
doses of coffee can be lethal. Ten grams, or 100 cups over 4 hours, can kill
the average human.
Modern
coffee brewing methods use approximately 200° water.
October
1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.
Only
about 20% of harvested coffee beans are considered to be a premium bean of the
highest quality.
Over
10,000 coffee cafes plus several thousand vending machines with both hot and
cold coffee serve the needs of Tokyo alone.
Over
5 million people in Brazil are employed by the coffee trade. Most of those are
involved with the cultivation and harvesting of more than 3 billion coffee
plants.
Over
53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator
between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
Over-roasted
coffee beans are very flammable during the roasting process.
Retail
espresso vendors report an increase in decaffeinated sales in the month of
January due to New Year's resolutions to decrease caffeine intake.
Roasted
coffee beans start to lose small amounts of flavor within two weeks. Ground
coffee begins to lose its flavor in one hour. Brewed coffee and espresso begins
to lose flavor within minutes.
The
2,000 Arabica coffee cherries it takes to make a roasted pound of coffee are
normally picked by hand as they ripen. Since each cherry contains two beans, it
takes about 4,000 Arabica beans to make a pound of roasted coffee.
The
Arabica is the original coffee plant. It still grows wild in Ethiopia. The
arabica coffee tree is an evergreen and in the wild will grow to a height
between 14 and 20 feet.
The
Arabs are generally believed to be the first to brew coffee.
The
aroma and flavor derived from coffee is a result of the little beads of the
oily substance called coffee essence, coffeol, or coffee oil. This is not an
actual oil since it dissolves in water.
The
average age of an Italian barista is 48 years old. A barista is a respected job
title in Italy.
The
average annual coffee consumption of the American adult is 26.7 gallons, or
over 400 cups.
The
average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different chemical components,
none of which is tasted in isolation but only as part of the overall flavor.
The
Civil War in the United States elevated the popularity of coffee to new
heights. Soldiers went to war with coffee beans as a primary ration.
The
coffee filter was invented in 1908 by a German homemaker, Melitta Benz, when
she lined a tin cup with blotter paper to filter the coffee grinds.
The
coffee tree produces its first full crop when it is about 5 years old.
Thereafter it produces consistently for 15 or 20 years.
The
drip pot was invented by a Frenchman around 1800.
The
Europeans first added chocolate to their coffee in the 1600's.
The
first coffee drinkers, the Arabs, flavored their coffee with spices during the
brewing process.
The
first commercial espresso machine was manufactured in Italy in 1906.
The
first Parisian cafe opened in 1689 to serve coffee.
The
French philosopher, Voltaire, reportedly drank fifty cups of coffee a day.
The
largest coffee importer center in the U.S. is located in the city of New
Orleans, LA.
The
most widely accepted legend associated to the discovery of coffee is of the
goatherder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was
amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the
leaves and berries of a coffee shrub. And, of course, he had to try them!
The
vast majority of coffee available to consumers are blends of different beans.
The
word 'cappuccino' is the result of several derivations, the original of which
began in 16th century. The Capuchin order of friars, established after 1525,
played an important role in bringing Catholicism back to Reformation Europe.
Its Italian name came from the long, pointed cowl, or cappuccino, derived from
cappuccino, "hood," that was worn as part of the order's habit. The
French version of cappuccino was capuchin, from which came English Capuchin. In
Italian cappuccino went on to describe espresso coffee mixed or topped with
steamed milk or cream, so called because the color of the coffee resembled the
color of the habit of a Capuchin friar. The first use of cappuccino in English
is recorded in 1948 in a work about San Francisco. There is also the story line
that says that the term comes from the fact that the coffee is dark, like the
monk's robe, and the cap is likened to the color of the monk's head.
Those
British are sophisticated people, in almost everything except their choice of
coffee. They still drink instant ten-to-one over fresh brewed.
William
Penn purchased a pound of coffee in New York in 1683 for $4.68.
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