Coffee is a brewed beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the coffee plant. They are seeds of "coffee cherries" that grow on trees in over 70 countries. Green coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world, often described as being second only to crude oil although this often repeated "fact" should be subjected to more careful scrutiny. Due to its caffeine content, coffee can have a stimulating effect in humans. Today, coffee is one of the most popular beverages worldwide.
It is thought that the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant was first recognized in Yemen in Arabia and the south west of Ethiopia, and the cultivation of coffee expanded in the Arab world. The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to 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 (also known as Coffea robusta ) and Coffea arabica ; less popular species are liberica, excelsa, stenophylla, mauritiana, racemosa . These are cultivated primarily in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted, undergoing several physical and chemical changes. They are roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavour. They are then ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways.
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 secular 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. In 2004, coffee was the top agricultural export for 12 countries, and in 2005, it was the world's seventh-largest legal agricultural export by value.
Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Many studies have examined the relationship between coffee consumption and certain medical conditions; whether the overall effects of coffee are positive or negative has been widely disputed. However, more recently it was determined that the method of brewing coffee is important.
Etymology
The term coffee was introduced to Europe by the Ottoman Turkish kahve , which is, in turn, derived from Arabic: قهوة , qahwah . In the languages of Ethiopia, terms such as bunna (in Amharic and Afan Oromo) and būn (in Tigrinya) are used. The source of the Arabic term is not certain; some have attributed it to the name of the Kaffa region in western Ethiopia, where coffee was first found; but Arab lexicographers described it as originally a kind of wine, derived from qahiya "to have no appetite". The English word coffee first came to be used in the early to mid-1600s, but early forms of the word (cited by English authors from various source languages) date to the 1590s.
History
Main article: History of coffeeIt is supposed that the Ethiopians, the ancestors of today's Oromo people, were the first to have discovered and recognized the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant. However, no direct evidence has ever been found revealing exactly where in Africa coffee grew or who among the natives might have used it as a stimulant or even known about it there earlier than the seventeenth century. The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably apocryphal. The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. From Ethiopia, coffee spread to Egypt and Yemen. It was in Arabia that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed, similar to how it is done today. By the 15th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.
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 den Broeck smuggled seedlings from Aden into Europe in 1616. The Dutch later grew the crop in Java and Ceylon. The first exports of Indonesian coffee from Java to the Netherlands occurred in 1711. Through the efforts of the British East India Company, coffee became popular in England as well. Oxford's Queen's Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, is still in existence today. Coffee was introduced in France in 1657, and in Austria and Poland after the 1683 Battle of Vienna, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks.
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 also 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.
Coffee has become a vital cash crop for many Third World countries. Over one hundred million people in developing countries have become dependent on coffee as their primary source of income (Ponte 1). Coffee has become the primary export and backbone for African countries like Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia as well as many Central American countries.(1)
Biology
Main article: CoffeaThe Coffea plant is native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. It belongs to a genus of ten species of flowering plants of the family Rubiaceae . It is an evergreen shrub or small tree that may grow 5 meters tall when unpruned. The leaves are dark green and glossy, usually 100–150 millimeters long and 60 millimeters wide. It produces clusters of fragrant white flowers that bloom simultaneously. The fruit berry is oval, about 15 millimeters long, and green when immature, but ripens to yellow, then crimson, becoming black on drying. Each berry usually contains two seeds, but 5–10% of the berries have only one; these are called peaberries. Berries ripen in seven to nine months.
Cultivation
Main article: Coffee varietiesCoffee is usually propagated by seeds. 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 but better body than arabica. For these reasons, about three-quarters 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 will not thrive. Robusta coffee also contains about 40–50% more caffeine than arabica. For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robustas are used in some espresso blends to provide a better foam head, a full-bodied result, and to lower the ingredient cost. Other cultivated species include Coffea liberica and Coffea esliaca , believed to be indigenous to Liberia and southern Sudan, respectively.
Most arabica coffee beans originate from either Latin America, eastern Africa, Arabia, or Asi
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