1. More than 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed every year, making it the world's most popular beverage----besides water.
2. Coffee beans are green before they are roasted.
3. Green coffee is a commodity and ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars traded on the world market.
4. The best coffee is grown on small farms, called estates.
5. Like many other fruits, coffee cherries grow on trees and coffee beans are the seeds of ripe cherries.
6. Coffee is grown in over 50 countries around the world.
7. Most of the world's coffee is grown in a rather small part of the world----between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
8. Hawaiian grown coffee ranks as some of the worlds finest coffee.
9. The average coffee tree can live 20-50 years and is harvested several times during the picking season.
10. A single coffee tree will produce 6-18 pounds of cherry per year, enough for 1-3 pounds of roasted coffee.
11. A pound of coffee contains roughly 4,000 beans (from 2,000 cherries).
12. The coffee bean contains over 1,250 chemical coupounds.
13. Coffee's flavor comes simultaneously from it's aroma---as vapors after the coffee is brewed---and from the hundreds of compounds found in the coffee.
14. A good coffee picker can pick 200 pounds of coffee cherry a day.
15. Espresso is a method of brewing and not a type of bean.
16. “Cupping” or tasting of coffee is a way to evaluate a coffee.
17. A cofffee's taste is dependent on the soil, climate and cultivation methods involved, along with the roasting processes, bean storage and brewing methods used.
18. The most significant cause of flavor loss to coffee is exposure to air, which cause the oils responsible for the coffee's flavor and aroma to evaporate.
19. The leading coffee producing countries of the world are Brazil and Colombia.
20. The United States imports and consumes more coffee than any other country.
Africa 800 A.D.
The most widely accepted story of the origin of coffee, is the story that follows Kaldi, the legendary goat herder. Kaldi noticed his herd dancing and frolicking among dark green leafed shrubs with red berries. He too ate these berries and was soon frolicking with his flock.
Witnessing Kaldi's energy, a monk picked the berries for his brothers. That night they were uncannily alert to divine inspiration. The monks kept it quiet for the next 200 or so years, until coffee crossed the Red Sea into Arabia.
Arabia 1000 to1600 A.D.
Coffee as we know it, began in Arabia where roasted beans were first brewed around 1000 A.D. By the end of the 13th century Muslims were drinking coffee as a replacement to the forbidden elixir-wine. Where Islam went, so too went coffee: North Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, and India.
Arabia made export beans infertile by roasting or boiling them, and it is said that no seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 1600's...until Baba Budan came on the scene. Story has it, this Indian pilgrim, turned smuggler, left Mecca with fertile seeds strapped to his belly. His beans bore fruit and started the coffee expansion that would soon reach Europe's colonies.
Europe 1615 to1700 A.D.
The Italians were the first to get coffee from the Turkish trade merchants. This was 1615, but the end product wasn't what they wanted. They wanted the means to produce coffee, and so the race was on.
The Dutch were first in 1616, getting a coffee plant into Europe for the first time. Then in 1696, they founded the first European owned coffee estate, then called Java, which is now a part of Indonesia.
Business took off and the Dutch were now far ahead of the rest of Europe. So confident in their abilities to manage the trade of coffee, Amsterdam began selling coffee trees to aristocrats around Europe.
The Scheme 1714 to 1720
King Louis XIV received his Dutch treat around 1714-a coffee tree for Paris's Royal Botanical Garden. Now, several years later a young naval officer named Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, was in Paris on leave from Martinique-a French colony in the Caribbean. He was imagining Martinique as a French Java and requested clippings from his king's tree. Permission denied.
Without resolution, de Clieu led a moonlight raid on the King's greenhouse and made away with a single sprout. Thus accomplished, de Clieu sailed for Martinique. His difficulties continued during the passage to Martinique, as a jealous passenger, who tried to steal the plant damaged it severely. The pirates who nearly captured the ship. The storm that nearly sank it, and then the drought. Water grew scarce on the ship and was rationed. De Clieu gave half of his ration to his now sickly plant.
Reaching Martinique, and under armed guard, the sprout grew strong. Over the next 50 years, 18-20 million trees were grown. This single plants offspring would then supply all of Latin America.
Brazil 1727 to 1800
In 1727, Brazil's government wants a cut of the coffee market, but first they need someone to smuggle seeds out of a coffee country. Meet Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta.
Colonel Palheta is sent to French Guiana, supposedly to mediate a border dispute. On arrival, he notes the fortress like coffee farms, and armed guards. He chooses the path of least resistance, the governor's wife. His plan pays off and at the farewell dinner she presents him with a huge bouquet of flowers spiked with seedlings.
From these scant shoots sprout the world's greatest coffee empire. By 1800 Brazil's gigantic harvests would turn coffee from a once elite indulgence to an everyday beverage. A drink for the masses.
