- Coffee is a relative of the gardenia plant family and is thought to be indigenous to the African region which is now the country of Ethiopia.
- Arabs were the first to cultivate coffee and the first to make a beverage from the roasted beans around 1300 AD.
- Today coffee is grown in more than 70 countries – all in subtropical regions – and more people drink coffee than any other beverage except water and perhaps tea.
- The United States consumes more coffee – 300 million cups a day – than any other country, but other countries drink more per capita. The citizens of Finland for example, population five million, drink a total of 20 million cups per day.
- Most research shows that drinking coffee has a variety of health benefits and may be good for heart health.
- Studies show workers who drank coffee rather than napping were more alert and performed better on the job.
- Coffee beans have up to 800 flavor characteristics that our senses can detect. Red wine, by comparison, has 400. Most coffee connoisseurs prefer mild roasts, because the longer a coffee bean is roasted, more characteristics are burned off.
- Espresso Coffee has just one-third of the caffeine content of ordinary coffee.
- The process of roasting causes coffee beans to begin to release carbon dioxide. When you pour hot water over freshly roasted and ground coffee, as in a French press, you will get a foamy head like that from a dark beer.
- A coffee tree lives between 60 and 70 years.
- Specialty coffee is surprisingly affordable. One cup costs about 24 cents, making it cheaper than bottled water.
- It takes about 5,000 pounds of coffee cherries to produce 1,000 pounds of green coffee beans; the beans lose another 20 percent of their weight in the roasting.