We listed some remarkable facts about coffee on this page.
Coffee Trivia
- When shopping for perfume, take some coffee with you in your bag and have a good sniff in between smelling each perfume to refresh your nose!
- Sprinkle spent coffee grounds around the base of your garden plants and it will stop snails and slugs from munching them!
- A mixture of coffee grounds and sugar, fed to a pot plant and watered regularly, will revive houseplants that have turned yellow in winter.
- Some of the worlds most powerful business, including Lloyds of London and the New York Stock Exchange, started life as a coffee houses.
- In December 2001 Brazil produced a scented postage stamp to promote its coffee – the smell should last between 3 and 5 years.
- Vincent Van Gogh was a big frequenter of the café society and famously said “I have tried to show the café as a place where one can go mad.”
- Pope Clement VIII loved coffee and authorised its use.
- Revolutions have been planned in coffee houses, namely the French and the American Revolutions.
- At the end of the 16th century records show there were at least 500 cafes in Istanbul alone. The first European cafes were opened by immigrants from Asia around 1650.
- A coffee tree has a lifespan of about 50 to 70 years.
- The coffee cherries turn from yellow to orange and then bright red, 6 – 8 months after flowering.
- When it is in bloom, the coffee tree is covered with 30,000 white flowers which begin to develop into fruit after 24 – 36 hours.
- A coffee tree can flower eight times in any one year – depending on rainfall.
- There are 900 different flavours of arabica. Complex and very volatile, they deteriorate if exposed to air and light.
- The aromas in coffee develop at the 10th minute of roasting.
- Coffee increases in volume during roasting by 18.60%.
Where did the word ‘coffee’ originate?
- Kaffa? A province in Ethiopia where it was first discovered.
- Kaaba? The holy building in Mecca.
- Kavus Kai? A Persian king who was able to defy gravity and levitate by drinking coffee.
- Kahwe? Meaning roasted in Turkish.
- Cahouah? A hunger curing drink in Arabic.
- Cohuet? Meaning strength or vigour in Arabic.
Coffee is…
- The second most widely used product in the world after oil.
- It was worth 6 million tonnes per year in the mid 90’s.
- It is worth €30 billion per year to the producing countries.
- It is a living to more than 100 million people.
- It is consumed at the rate of 1400 million cups per day.
- The world’s second most popular drink after water.
What the dictionary has to say about the word “Coffee”:
cof·fee
- Any of various tropical African shrubs or trees of the genus Coffea, especially C. arabica, widely cultivated in the tropics for their seeds that are dried, roasted, and ground to prepare a stimulating aromatic drink.
- The beanlike seeds of this plant, enclosed within a pulpy fruit.
- The beverage prepared from the seeds of this plant.
- A moderate brown to dark brown or dark grayish brown.
- An informal social gathering at which coffee and other refreshments are served.
