Coffee "101" >> Coffee Trivia

Coffee Trivia
You never know...next time you're playing "Trivial Pursuit®" with your friends, you may just get a coffee-related question!

COFFEE AROUND THE WORLD

• Coffee is big business: It is second only to oil as a commodity on world markets.
• The coffee industry employes more than 20 million worldwide.
• Coffee is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.
• Every day, Americans drink over 300 million cups of coffee.
• Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
• The heavy tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773, which caused the "Boston Tea Party," resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. Drinking coffee was an expression of freedom.
• Over the last three centuries, 90% of all people living in the Western world have switched from tea to coffee.
• Count Rumford, an eccentric American adventurer who settled in Paris, France, perfected the French Drip Pot around 1800.
• Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea, a six-fold increase since 1940.
• Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.
• October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan
• "Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love" - Turkish Proverb

COFFEE FACTS AND FIGURES

• Dark roasted coffees actually have LESS caffeine than medium roasts! The longer a coffee is roasted, the more caffeine burns off during the process.
• A scientific report form the University of California found that the steam rising from a cup of coffee contains the same amounts of antioxidants as 3 oranges. Antioxidants are heterocyclic compounds, which prevent cancer and heart disease. Coffee is good for you!
• Coffee must have at least 97% of its caffeine removed to qualify as decaffeinated in the United States. A 5-ounce cup of decaffeinated coffee contains less than 5 milligrams of caffeine.
• During roasting, coffee beans become 18-23% lighter and 50-100% larger.
• It takes approximately 42 coffee beans to make a shot of espresso.

COFFEE CULTIVATION

• An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. This amounts to approximately 2000 pounds of beans after milling.
• Arabica coffee trees produce up to 12 pounds of coffee cherries a year, depending on soil and climate.
• The arabica coffee tree is an evergreen and in the wild grows to a height between 14 and 20 feet.
• The aroma and flavor of coffee resides in microscopic beads of an oily substance called coffee essence or coffeol. It is not, however, actually oil, as it dissolves in water.
• The white jasmine-scented coffee flower only lasts two to three days, then becomes a green cherry.
• The coffee "bean" is actually the seed of the coffee cherry. Two beans grow face-to-face within each cherry, and there are about four thousand beans in a single pound of specialty coffee.
• Occasionally a single round bean, called a "Peaberry," will form instead of the normal 2 flat ones.
• Hawaii is the only state of the United States in which coffee is commercially grown. Hawaiian coffee is harvested between November and April.

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