COFFEE..all the facts

Legend of coffee 

Some archaeological evidence shows that humans were eating the coffee berries as long ago as a hundred thousand years.

One legend says that a goat herder in Ethiopia observed his charges eating the red berries from a nearby tree and became excited. Trying them himself, he too felt a great lift. By 600 AD that magical berry, and the brew made from drying and grinding its seeds, had found its way to what is now Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

Stories tell of a native of India smuggling the precious seeds of the tree out of Arabia around 1650 AD, then planting them in the hills of Chikmagalur. Arabian law forbad the exporting of beans that could germinate, effectively controlling coffee trade for centuries. Whether myth or history, the fruit of those seeds now forms a third of India's large coffee output.

Coffee facts 

- The first Espresso machine was introduced in 1822 by the French, but it was the Italians who perfected and distributed it.
-There is less caffeine in dark roast than in medium roast. It is because, the longer the beans are roasted, the more caffeine burns off.

- During the American Civil War, soldiers, having used up all their coffee supplies, used roasted sweet potato and Indian corn as a substitute.

-On the contrary to popular belief, coffee does not grow in plain brown beans. It actually grows in red berries, which normally carry two green beans each. Sometimes there's only one bean in the berry - this single bean is called a peaberry.The coffee berries are often called cherries.

-Cowboy coffee? well, yes, cowboys are said to have had one of the most peculiar ways of making coffee - they put ground coffee in a clean sock and put in a pot of cold water over a campfire.

- Ants don't like coffee, so you can use coffee to keep them away from you plants or out of your rooms. Just put the used coffee grounds around the plants or on the ant tracks in your house.

-When Admiral Josephus "Joe" Daniels became Chief of Naval Operations he forbid to serve alcohol on board ships. As a result, coffee became the drink of choice, thus the term "Cup of Joe".

-At first in Europe the coffee was known as Arabian Wine.
-When beans begin to cool after roasting, they release approximately 700 chemical substances which make up the vaporizing aromas.

-The most expensive coffee in the world is called Kopi Luwak. Kopi is the Indonesian word for the coffee and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. Also known as Civet coffee it is made from coffee berries that have been eaten and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The beans inside the berries pass through the system undigested and are then defecated. The beans are then washed and given only a light roast to avoid destroying the complex flavors that are developed through the process.

-The word "coffee" entered the English language in 1598 via Italian word caffé, which in return is derived from Turkish kahve that came into being via Arabic qahwa, a truncation of qahhwat al-bun meaning wine of the bean.
-The first coffee house was opened in 1471 in Istanbul and was called Kiva Han. The first European coffee house was opened in Italy in 1645.

-At first coffee was mostly grown in Ethiopia where it was cultivated by highlanders.

Caffeine molecule 

The perfect espresso requires 42 coffee beans.

Chemical Structure of Caffeine 

How much caffeine is in there? 

Amount of caffeine in one average cup (200 ml/7 oz):

Brewed coffee: 60-130 mg
Instant coffee: 65-100 mg
Decaf coffee: 2-5 mg
Black tea: 40-50 mg
Green tea: 15-25 mg
Hot chocolate: 3 - 35 mg

Shot of espresso (30ml/1oz) contains 25-30 mg caffeine

Red Bull Energy Drink (250 ml/8.3 oz): 80mg
Can of Cola (350 ml/12 oz): 35-45 mg

Dark chocolate: (100 g/3.3 oz) 66 mg
Milk chocolate: (100 g/3.3 oz) 20 mg

“Coffee is a beverage that puts one to sleep when not drank.
-Alphonse Allais”

Prepared by adding espresso into hot water. Strength is similar to drip coffee, but flavor is different0 points

Consists strong coffee (or espresso) with scalded milk.0 points