Friday, August 25, 2006
Friday Coffeehouse: Facts About Coffee
OK, so I admit that this is kind of a cop-out coffee post, but I am quite on-the-go today, needing to get going immediately on getting my son and I breakfast, spend some quality time over a cup of tea with my good friend who is staying here right now, then truck on down to Portland for the day where we have some good things planned. I wanted to at least provide you with some type of interesting reading material this morning for your own tea or coffee-times, and came across the below interesting "facts" about coffee. Some of them you will already know, but I particularly was intrigued by the third point!- At one time owning coffee plants or seeds could be dangeorus. Growers in Arabia, then the Turks and finally the Europeans in the 1600 and 1700's guarded seeds and plants to prevent others getting hold of their valuable plant. People were killed because they had possession of coffee plants.
Drinking coffee for breakfast dates back to the late 1600's. Here in the U.S. 50% of all coffee is still consumed at breakfast. More than 50 countries grow more than 8 billion pounds of coffee each year. Today coffee ranks second only to oil as the largest "natural" commodity in international commerce. The coffee bean is the world's most valuable agricultural commodity.
After the war, in 1946 in Italy, Achille Gaggia perfected his expresso machine. Cappuccino is named for the resemblance of its color to the robes of the Capuchin monks' order.- In 1971 Mr. Starbucks opened his first store in Seattle's, which can be considered the beginning of the current fresh-roasted whole bean coffee craze.
Today, coffee is appreciated and enjoyed throughout the world, with each country having its own version of the original coffee houses, and coffee drinking is still an activity which tends to draw people together where they can chat and relax in a convivial atmosphere.
~Sia, in Vancouver, WA
one of us ::
8:49 AM ::
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