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.
- 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.
- 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.
- In early America, coffee was usually taken between meals and after dinner.
- 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.
- •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, 11.97 kilograms. Italy has an annual consumption per capita of only 4,54 kilograms.
- 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 5,44 kilograms 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.
- 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 204 C and 218 C. 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 60 kilograms 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 4,57 meters but are normally pruned to around 2,44 meters 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 38 C Then the flavors applied, when the coffee beans' pores are open and therefore more receptive to flavor absorption.
- 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 1.500 meters.
- Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.
- 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 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 year 1763, there were over 200 coffee shops in Venice.
- Irish cream and Hazelnut are the most popular whole bean coffee flavorings.
- Large doses of coffee can be lethal. 100 cups over 4 hours, can kill the average human.
- Modern coffee brewing methods use approximately 90 C water.
- October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.
- Over-roasted coffee beans are very flammable during the roasting process.
- 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 4 and 6,10 meters.
- 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 100 liters, or over 400 cups.
- 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 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 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.
