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Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark, slightly acidic flavor prepared
from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee
beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated
in over 69 countries, primarily in Latin America, Southeast Asia, South
Asia and Africa.
A coffee bean is the seed of the coffee plant (the pit inside the red
or purple fruit is often referred to as a cherry). Even though they
are seeds, they are referred to as 'beans' because of their resemblance.
To make a drink
from coffee beans, the beans must first be specially prepared by roasting.
The beans are usually roasted a short time after they are picked. This
dries them out, makes them last longer, and makes them ready to be packed.
Before the beans are made into a drink, they are ground (crushed into
tiny pieces in a coffee mill). When the ground coffee is placed into
boiling water, the flavour and dark brown colour of the beans goes into
the water. Making coffee is called brewing coffee.
The coffee timeline
dates all the way back to 5 AD when many believe that coffee was discovered
in Ethiopia. Vist our "Coffee Timeline"
for an interesting layout showing the history of coffee.
There are several
legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves
the Yemenite Sufi mystic Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili. When traveling in
Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed birds of unusual vitality, and,
upon trying the berries that the birds had been eating, experienced
the same vitality.
Other accounts attribute the discovery of coffee to Sheik Abou'l Hasan
Schadheli's disciple, Omar. According to the ancient chronicle (preserved
in the Abd-Al-Kadir manuscript), Omar, who was known for his ability
to cure the sick through prayer, was once exiled from Mocha to a desert
cave near Ousab. Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubery,
but found them to be bitter. He tried roasting the beans to improve
the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften
the bean, which resulted in a fragrant brown liquid. Upon drinking the
liquid Omar was revitalized and sustained for days. As stories of this
"miracle drug" reached Mocha, Omar was asked to return and
was made a saint. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_history)
Although it would
be hard to guess, the Economics of Coffee suggest that over 2.25 billion
cups of coffee
are consumed in the world every day. In 2010, it was the number-one
hot beverage of choice among convenience store customers, generating
about 78 percent of sales within the hot dispensed beverages category.
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