Facts About Coffee

Coffee needs to be roasted before you can drink it. Part of the roasting process involves a few chemicals being removed and gathered separated for other uses. These chemicals will be used to make coffee oil. After the roasting process has completed the beans are ground to a powder after which other ingredients are added. The other ingredients are yeast and sucrose. This is when the fermentation process can begin. This takes around 4 hours and is carried out at 22 Celsius.

There are many different types of coffee beans, however the two most common are: Arabica and Robusta. Coffee beans taste and smell different according to where they are grown. The amount of caffeine in the coffee also varies.

Research and studies into the health benefits of coffee, have been around for many years and they claim that there are some major benefits of drinking coffee on a regular basis. The beans are very high in chlorogenic acid (a type of antioxidant). Between 70 and 200mg can be found in a cup of Arabica whereas a cup of Robusta can have as much as 350mg.

The average coffee consumer will take-in almost a 1g worth of cinnamate esters, mainly in the form of chlorogenic acid and somewhere in the region of 500mg of cinnamates, this will come from caffeic acid each day. That means you could get nearly 70% of your daily allowance for this group of antioxidants.

Coffee originated in Ethiopia, a country in East Africa. The export of coffee is big business for the locals of Ethiopia and almost 60% of the export business in Ethiopia is because of coffee. Worldwide too, coffee is the most exported product in the world, second only to petroleum.

Did You Know?

*To reach full maturity, a coffee tree takes 5 years

*One pound (in weight) is the average amount of coffee a single tree can produce in one year

*Venice opened the first coffee house in Europe, in 1683

*Coffee was available in Europe from around 1608, however it was mostly the rich who could afford it.

*It is unusual for a coffee berry to have 3 beans inside it. When this does happen, it’s considered good luck. Normally it only has 2 beans

*The first instant coffee was invented in 1906 by a Belgian who lived in Guatemala he then immigrated to the United States. Ironically his name was George Washington.