I used to be a tea drinker. Then a black coffee drinker. Then a cream in my coffee drinker and now I am back to being a tea drinker with the occasional coffee or latté. I say occasional because compared to what I used to drink, 4-5 cups a day, it is. I did give up coffee for a while. For whatever the reasons. I know some of my friends have tried. It's hard giving it up completely because when I am in my creative mode inside the kitchen and outside of the kitchen, painting and writing, I tend to want to drink coffee. It seems that's what I want the most. The fresh aromatic smell. A nice full bodied cup... or cups of coffee. Enough to get things flowing and buzzing around the kitchen.
There is a lot of information regarding coffee. Without making this a full fledged history lesson you can always swing by your local library or search the internet to find more about the coffee bean. Here are some interesting facts I discovered:
- The country of origin Ethiopia
- Coffee is cultivated in over 70 countries
- Coffee was first thought to be used for spiritual reasons
- The process kopi luwak is the most expensive coffee at $160 per pound
- There is the story of Kaldi, a 9th century goat herder who first discovered coffee
- Folklore has it that the Oromo people would plant a coffee tree on sorcerers' graves
- During the 18th century seamen aboard British Royal Navy ships substituted coffee by dissolving burnt bread in hot water
- In 1645 the first European coffee house opened in Italy
- 1931 introduced vacuum packed cans of coffee
- Today during the decaffeination process the extracted caffeine is usual sold to the pharmaceutical industry
- Brazil is the largest exporter of coffee, Indonesia is the third largest
- Coffee is the second most traded product in the world; the first being petroleum
- Between 1998-2000 6.7 metric tons of coffee were produce each year worldwide
- Some studies suggest that coffee reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, diabetes (type 2), cirrhosis of the liver and gout
- jw