Coffee Totally Explained

Coffee is a widely consumed beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called beans, of the coffee plant. Coffee was first consumed in the 9th century, when it was discovered in the highlands of Ethiopia. From there, it spread to Egypt and Yemen, and by the 15th century had reached Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe and the Americas.
Coffee berries, which contain the coffee bean, are produced by several species of small evergreen bush of the genus Coffea. The two most commonly grown species are Coffea canephora and Coffea arabica. These are cultivated in Latin America, southeast Asia, and Africa. Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted, undergoing several physical and chemical changes. They are roasted to various degrees, depending on the desired flavor. They are then ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee can be prepared and presented by a variety of methods.
Coffee has played an important role in many societies throughout history. In Africa and Yemen, it was used in religious ceremonies. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its consumption until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. It was banned in Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century for political reasons, and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe. Coffee is an important export commodity for many countries: in 2004, coffee was the top agricultural export for 12 countries; and in 2005, it was among the world's top fifteen legal agricultural exports in value. Many studies have examined the relationship between coffee consumption and certain medical conditions, but whether the effects of coffee are positive or negative is still disputed. It comes from the Italian caffè. This, in turn, was borrowed from the Persian ghahveh, Ottoman Turkish kahveh, and the Arabic qahwa (قهوة) collectively. The origin of the Arabic and Persian terms is uncertain; they're either derived from the name of the Kaffa region in southern Ethiopia, where coffee was cultivated, or by a truncation of qahwat al-būnn, meaning "wine of the bean" in Arabic. In Eritrea, "būnn" (also meaning "wine of the bean" in Tigrigna) is used. The Amharic and Afan Oromo name for coffee is bunna.

History

Coffee use can be traced at least to as early as the 9th century, when it appeared in the highlands of Ethiopia. According to legend, Eritrean and Ethiopian shepherds were the first to observe the influence of the caffeine in coffee beans when the goats appeared to "dance" and to have an increased level of energy after consuming wild coffee berries. and by the 15th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa.
In 1583, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, gave this description of coffee after returning from a ten year trip to the Near East:
From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy. The thriving trade between Venice and North Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East brought many goods, including coffee, to the Venetian port. From Venice, it was introduced to the rest of Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was deemed a Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink". The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645. The Dutch were the first to import coffee on a large scale, and they were among the first to defy the Arab prohibition on the exportation of plants or unroasted seeds when Pieter van dan Broeck smuggled seedlings from Aden into Europe in 1616. The Dutch later grew the crop in Java and Ceylon.
When coffee reached North America during the colonial period, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe. During the Revolutionary War, however, the demand for coffee increased so much that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was partly due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants. After the War of 1812, during which Britain temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans' taste for coffee grew, and high demand during the American Civil War together with advances in brewing technology secured the position of coffee as an everyday commodity in the United States.

Biology

The Coffea plant is native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. have only one; these are called peaberries. Berries ripen in seven to nine months.

Cultivation

Coffee is usually propagated by seed. The traditional method of planting coffee is to put 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season; half are eliminated naturally. Coffee is often intercropped with food crops, such as corn, beans, or rice, during the first few years of cultivation.
The two main cultivated species of the coffee plant are Coffea canephora and Coffea arabica. Arabica coffee (from C. arabica) is considered more suitable for drinking than robusta coffee (from C. canephora); robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor than arabica. For this reason, about three-fourths of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica. However, C. canephora is less susceptible to disease than C. arabica and can be cultivated in environments where C. arabica won't thrive. Robusta coffee also contains about 40–50 percent more caffeine than arabica. Other cultivated species include Coffea liberica and Coffea esliaca, believed to be indigenous to Liberia and southern Sudan, respectively. These taste characteristics are dependent not only on the coffee's growing region, but also on genetic subspecies (varietals) and processing. Varietals are generally known by the region in which they're grown, such as Colombian, Java, or Kona.

Ecological effects

Originally, coffee farming was done in the shade of trees, which provided habitat for many animals and insects. Today, farmers use sun cultivation, in which coffee is grown in rows under full sun with little or no forest canopy. This causes berries to ripen more rapidly and bushes to produce higher yields but requires the clearing of trees and increased use of fertilizer and pesticides. Opponents of sun cultivation say environmental problems such as deforestation, pesticide pollution, habitat destruction, and soil and water degradation are the side effects of these practices. While certain types of shaded coffee cultivation systems show greater biodiversity than full-sun systems, they still compare poorly to native forest in terms of habitat value, and some researchers are concerned that the push for "shade grown" coffee may actually be encouraging deforestation in ecologically sensitive regions.

Processing

Roasting

Coffee berries and their seeds undergo multi-step processing before they become the roasted coffee with which most Western consumers are familiar. First, coffee berries are picked, generally by hand. Then, the flesh of the berry is removed, usually by machine, and the seeds—usually called beans—are fermented to remove the slimy layer of mucilage still present on the bean. When the fermentation is finished, the beans are washed with large quantities of fresh water to remove the fermentation residue, generating massive amounts of highly polluted coffee wastewater. Finally the seeds are dried and sorted and labeled as green coffee beans.
The next step in the process is the roasting of the green coffee. Coffee is usually sold in a roasted state, and all coffee is roasted before it's consumed. It can be sold roasted by the supplier, or it can be home roasted. The roasting process influences the taste of the beverage by changing the coffee bean both physically and chemically. The bean decreases in weight as moisture is lost but increases in volume, causing it to become less dense. The density of the bean also influences the strength of the coffee and requirements for packaging. The actual roasting begins when the temperature inside the bean reaches 200 °C (392 °F), though different varieties of beans differ in moisture and density and therefore roast at different rates. Sucrose is rapidly lost during the roasting process and may disappear entirely in darker roasts. During roasting, aromatic oils, acids, and caffeine weaken, changing the flavor; at 205 °C (400 °F), other oils start to develop.

Presentation

Once brewed, coffee may be presented in a variety of ways. Drip brewed, percolated, or French-pressed/cafetière coffee may be served with no additives (colloquially known as black) or with either sugar, milk or cream, or both. When served cold, it's called iced coffee.
Espresso-based coffee has a wide variety of possible presentations. In its most basic form, it's served alone (as a "shot") or in the style café américano—several shots of espresso, topped with hot water. equal parts espresso and milk froth make a cappuccino, and a dollop of hot, foamed milk on top creates a caffè macchiato.
A number of products are sold for the convenience of consumers who don't want to prepare their own coffee. Instant coffee is dried into soluble powder or freeze dried into granules that can be quickly dissolved in hot water. Canned coffee has been popular in Asian countries for many years, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Vending machines typically sell varieties of flavored canned coffee, much like brewed or percolated coffee, available both hot and cold. Japanese convenience stores and groceries also have a wide availability of bottled coffee drinks, which are typically lightly sweetened and pre-blended with milk. Bottled coffee drinks are also consumed in the United States. Liquid coffee concentrates are sometimes used in large institutional situations where coffee needs to be produced for thousands of people at the same time. It is described as having a flavor about as good as low-grade robusta coffee and costs about 10 cents a cup to produce. The machines used can process up to 500 cups an hour, or 1,000 if the water is preheated.

Social aspects

� See also: Coffeehouse for a social history of coffee, and caffè for specifically Italian traditions.

Coffee was initially used for spiritual reasons. At least 1,000 years ago, traders brought coffee across the Red Sea into Arabia (modern day Yemen), where Muslim monks began cultivating the shrub in their gardens. At first, the Arabians made wine from the pulp of the fermented coffee berries. This beverage was known as qishr (kisher in modern usage) and was used during religious ceremonies.
   Coffee became the substitute beverage in place of wine in spiritual practices where wine was forbidden. Coffee drinking was briefly prohibited to Muslims as haraam in the early years of the 16th century, but this was quickly overturned. Use in religious rites among the Sufi branch of Islam led to coffee's being put on trial in Mecca, accused of being a heretic substance, and its production and consumption was briefly repressed. It was later prohibited in Ottoman Turkey under an edict by the Sultan Murad IV. Coffee, regarded as a Muslim drink, was prohibited to Ethiopian Orthodox Christians until as late as 1889; it's now considered a national drink of Ethiopia for people of all faiths. Its early association in Europe with rebellious political activities led to its banning in England, among other places.
   A contemporary example of coffee prohibition can be found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion with over 13 million followers worldwide, which calls for coffee abstinence. The organization claims that it's both physically and spiritually unhealthy to consume coffee. This comes from the Mormon doctrine of health, given in 1833 by Mormon founder Joseph Smith, in a revelation called the Word of Wisdom. It doesn't identify coffee by name, but includes the statement that "hot drinks are not for the belly", which has been interpreted to forbid both coffee and tea.
   Coffee appears to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, diabetes mellitus type 2, cirrhosis of the liver, and gout. Some health effects are due to the caffeine content of coffee, as the benefits are only observed in those who drink caffeinated coffee, while others appear to be due to other components. For example, the antioxidants in coffee prevent free radicals from causing cell damage.
   Coffee's negative health effects are mostly due to its caffeine content. Research suggests that drinking caffeinated coffee can cause a temporary increase in the stiffening of arterial walls. Excess coffee consumption may lead to a magnesium deficiency or hypomagnesemia. Some studies suggest that it may have a mixed effect on short-term memory, by improving it when the information to be recalled is related to the current train of thought, but making it more difficult to recall unrelated information. Nevertheless, the mainstream view of medical experts is that drinking three 8-ounce cups of coffee per day (considered average or moderate consumption) doesn't have significant health risks for adults.

Caffeine content

Depending on the type of coffee and method of preparation, the caffeine content of a single serving can vary greatly. On average, a single cup of coffee of about 207 milliliters (7 fluid ounces) or a single shot of espresso of about 30 mL (1oz) can be expected to contain the following amounts of caffeine:

Drip coffee: 115–175 mg
Espresso: 100 mg
Brewed/Pressed: 80–135 mg
Instant: 65–100 mg
Decaf, brewed: 3–4 mg
Decaf, instant: 2–3 mg

Economics

Coffee ingestion on average is about a third of that of tap water in most of North America and Europe. Brazil remains the largest coffee exporting nation, but in recent years Vietnam has become a major producer of robusta beans. Robusta coffees, traded in London at much lower prices than New York's arabica, are preferred by large industrial clients, such as multinational roasters and instant coffee producers, because of the lower cost. Four single roaster companies buy more than 50 percent of all of the annual production: Kraft, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, and Sara Lee. The preference of the "Big Four" coffee companies for cheap robusta is believed by many to have been a major contributing factor to the crash in coffee prices, and the demand for high-quality arabica beans is only slowly recovering. Many experts believe the giant influx of cheap green coffee after the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement of 1975–1989 led to the prolonged price crisis from 1989 to 2004. In 1997 the price of coffee in New York broke US$3.00/lb, but by late 2001 it had fallen to US$0.43/lb.
The Dutch certification system "Max Havelaar" started the concept of fair trade labeling, which guarantees coffee growers a negotiated pre-harvest price. In 2004, 24,222 metric tons out of 7,050,000 produced worldwide were fair trade; in 2005, 33,991 metric tons out of 6,685,000 were fair trade, an increase from 0.34 percent to 0.51 percent. A number of studies have shown that fair trade coffee has a positive impact on the communities that grow it. A study in 2002 found that fair trade strengthened producer organizations, improved returns to small producers, and positively affected their quality of life. A 2003 study concluded that fair trade has "greatly improved the well-being of small-scale coffee farmers and their families" by providing access to credit and external development funding and greater access to training, giving them the ability to improve the quality of their coffee. The families of fair trade producers were also more stable than those who were not involved in fair trade, and their children had better access to education. A 2005 study of Bolivian coffee producers concluded that Fairtrade certification has had a positive impact on local coffee prices, economically benefiting all coffee producers, Fairtrade certified or not.

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