Coffee
Did you know this about Coffee?
Coffee is the most popular drink worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.
It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso.
On average, men drink more coffee than women (1.7 cups per day vs 1.5 cups)
37% of coffee drinkers drink their coffee black; while 63% add a sweetener such as sugar.
Instant coffee accounts for 13% of all coffee drunk.
57% of coffee is drunk at breakfast; 34% between meals and 13% at other meals.
It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans drink
a total of 350 million cups of coffee a day.
About half of all American adults have a cup of coffee to start their day.
The USA is the world's largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20 million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing 1/3 of all coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee typically drinking 3.4 cups of coffee a day.
The first European coffee was sold in pharmacies in 1615 as a medicinal remedy.
Cappuccino is so named because of the drink's peak of foam which resembles the cowl of a Capuchin friar's habit.
Flavored coffees are created after the roasting process by applying flavored oils specially created to use on coffee beans.
Espresso contains less caffeine than any other roast.Coffee was first known in Europe as Arabian Wine.
Bach wrote a coffee
cantata in 1732.
The US Navy used to serve alcoholic beverages on board ships. However when Admiral Josephus "Joe" Daniels became Chief of Naval Operations, he outlawed alcohol on board ships, except for very special occasions. Coffee then became the drink of choice, hence the term "Cup of Joe".
Italians do not drink espresso during meals. It is considered to be a separate event and is given its own time.
In Greece and Turkey, the oldest person is almost always served their coffee first.
In the ancient Arab world, coffee became such a staple part of family life that one of the causes allowed by law for marital separation was a husband's refusal to produce coffee for his wife.
Raw coffee beans, soaked in water and spices, are chewed like candy in many parts of Africa.
Coffee represents three quarters of all the caffeine consumed in the USA.
For reducing wrinkles and improving their skin, the Japanese have been known to bathe in coffee grounds fermented with pineapple pulp.
Citrus flavors have been added to coffee for several hundred years.
The Europeans first added chocolate to their coffee in the 1600's.
Our sense of smell, more than any of our other senses makes our final judgment on coffee.
With alcohol forbidden by the Koran in the early 1400's coffee soon became the replacement drink.
The French philosopher, Voltaire, reportedly drank fifty cups of coffee a day.
Decaffeinated coffee sales are at their highest in January due to people's New Year resolutions.
The Arabs flavoured their coffee with spices during the brewing process.
Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.
The human body will absorb just 300 milligrams of caffeine at a given time. Additional amounts are cast off and provide no additional stimulation. The human body dissipates 20% of the caffeine in it's system per hour.
Great pages about coffee:
Wild medical contraptions used to exist to administer a mixture of coffee and an assortment of heated butter, honey and oil to treat the sick.
Regular coffee drinkers have about 1/3 less asthma symptoms than those of non-coffee drinkers according to a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.
Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea, a sixfold increase since 1940.
Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.
European countries rated for their coffee consumption per capita (in kgs) in 1997:
1 Finland 12.82
2 Denmark 12.33
3 Sweden 11.90
4 Holland 10.20
5 Belgium 9.67
6 Norway 9.67
7 Switzerland 9.36
8 Germany 7.32
9 Austria 6.41
10 France 5.75
11 Italy 4.80
12 Hungary 2.20
13 Greece 2.12
14 Spain 1.86
15 England 1.76
16 Portugal 1.37
17 Iceland 1.00
From RealCoffee http://www.realcoffee.co.uk/ Trivia
More trivia
Originally, coffee beans were used as a food and not as a beverage. East African tribes would grind the coffee cherries together, mix it into a paste with animal fat, then roll it into little balls. The mixture was said to give warriors much-needed energy for battle.
Around the year 1000 AD, Ethiopians concocted a type of wine from coffee berries, fermenting the dried beans in water.
According to Dr. Bruce Ames,
University of California at Berkeley,
there are more than 1,000
chemicals in a cup of coffee.
Of these, only 26 have been tested,
and half caused cancer in rats.
Dr. Bruce Ames, UC Berkeley,
in Smithsonian Magazine 12/95
The world's costliest coffee, at $130-$300 a pound , is called Kopi Luwak.
It is in the droppings of a type of marsupial that eats only the very best coffee beans. Plantation workers track them and scoop their precious poop.
According to Archives of General Medicine, coffee drinkers have sex more frequently and enjoy it more than non-coffee drinkers.
According to the National Safety Council, coffee is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases it may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.
The darker the coffee bean, then the less caffeine. The longer the bean is roasted, the more the caffeine gets cooked away.
A cup of drip brewed coffee has 115 mg of caffeine, an espresso has about 80 mg, instant coffee has about 65 mg, and decaffeinated coffee has about 3 mg.
With more than 25 million people employed in the industry, coffee is second only to oil in world trade. source
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines. source
A survey of Americans showed that coffee was the most memorable smell followed by peanut butter and Vick's Vaporub.
The word "tip" is also related to coffee. It comes from old London coffeehouses where the waiters' brass boxes were etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness."
Frederick the great had his coffee made with champagne and a bit of mustard.
How to make a perfect cup of Espresso:
1. Use Arabica beans from your trusted local shop.
2. Grind them carefully to a consistency almost like powder.
3. Compress the grinded coffee in the holder . Use 15 gram for a double.
4. The well rinsed Espresso machine should give
a pressure of 9 bars and a water temperature of 90 C
using 7 cl of fresh water
5. The brewing should take about 32 seconds with a coffee temperature of 79 (174 F)