Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted
coffee bean
A coffee bean is a seed of the ''Coffea'' plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a coffee cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit. Even thou ...
s. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly
acid
In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...
ic, coffee has a
stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its
caffeine
Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine t ...
content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of the ''
Coffea
''Coffea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the Family (biology), family Rubiaceae. ''Coffea'' species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are use ...
'' plant's fruits are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are
roasted
Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization ...
and then ground into fine particles that are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, producing a cup of coffee. It is usually served hot, although chilled or
iced coffee
Iced coffee is a coffee beverage served cold. It may be prepared either by brewing coffee normally (i.e. carafe, French press, etc.) and then serving it over ice or in cold milk or by brewing the coffee cold. In hot brewing, sweeteners and fla ...
is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g.,
espresso
Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and ...
,
French press
A French press, also known as a cafetière, ''cafetière à piston'', ''caffettiera a stantuffo'', press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks. In 1923 Ugo Paolini, an Ital ...
,
caffè latte
Caffè latte (), often shortened to just latte () in English, is a coffee beverage of Italian origin made with espresso and steamed milk. Variants include the chocolate-flavored mocha or replacing the coffee with another beverage base such as ma ...
, or already-brewed
canned coffee
is a pre-brewed version of the beverage, sold ready to drink. It is particularly popular in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere across Asia, and produced in a number of styles and by a large number of companies. Canned coffee is available in supe ...
).
Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
,
sugar substitute
A sugar substitute is a food additive that provides a sweetness like that of sugar while containing significantly less food energy than sugar-based sweeteners, making it a zero-calorie () or low-calorie sweetener. Artificial sweeteners may be d ...
s,
milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...
, and
cream
Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...
are often used to mask the bitter taste or enhance the flavor.
Though coffee is now a global commodity, it has a
long history tied closely to food traditions around the
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...
. The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking in the form of the modern beverage appears in modern-day
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
from the mid-15th century in
Sufi
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
shrines, where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a manner similar to current methods. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , while the summits reach heights of up to . ...
via coastal
Somali intermediaries and began cultivation. By the 16th century, the drink had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, later spreading to Europe. In the 20th century, coffee became a global commodity, creating different
coffee culture
Coffee culture is the set of traditions and social behaviors that surround the consumption of coffee, particularly as a social lubricant. The term also refers to the cultural diffusion and adoption of coffee as a widely consumed stimulant. In the ...
s around the world.
The two most commonly grown coffee bean types are ''
C. arabica'' and ''
C. robusta''. Coffee plants are cultivated in
over 70 countries, primarily in the equatorial regions of the Americas, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa. , Brazil was the leading grower of coffee beans, producing 35% of the world's total. Green, unroasted coffee is the most traded agricultural commodity and one of the most traded commodities overall, second only to
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
. Despite sales of coffee reaching billions of dollars worldwide, farmers producing coffee beans disproportionately live in poverty. Critics of the coffee industry have also pointed to its
negative impact on the environment and the
clearing of land for coffee-growing and water use.
Etymology
![Coffee beans unroasted](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Coffee_beans_unroasted.jpg)
The word ''coffee'' entered the English language in 1582 via the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, borrowed from the
Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
(), borrowed in turn from the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
().
Medieval Arab
lexicographers traditionally held that the
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
of meant '
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
', given its distinctly dark color, and derived from the verb (), '
to have no appetite'.
The word most likely meant 'the dark one', referring to the brew or the bean; is not the name of the bean, which are known in Arabic as ''bunn'' and in
Cushitic languages
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As ...
as ''būn''. Semitic languages had the root ''qhh'', 'dark color', which became a natural designation for the beverage.
There is no evidence that the word was named after the Ethiopian province of
Kaffa (a part of where coffee originates from:
Abyssinia
The Ethiopian Empire (), also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or just simply known as Ethiopia (; Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ , , Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Afar: ''Itiyoophiyaa''), was an empire that historica ...
),
or any significant authority stating the opposite, or that it is traced to the Arabic ''quwwa'' (), meaning 'power'.
The terms ''
coffee pot
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee gr ...
'' and ''
coffee break
A break at work (or work-break) is a period of time during a shift in which an employee is allowed to take time off from their job. It is a type of downtime. There are different types of breaks, and depending on the length and the employer' ...
'' originated in 1705 and 1952 respectively.
History
Legendary accounts
According to one legend, ancestors of today's
Oromo people
The Oromo (pron. Oromo language, Oromo: ''Oromoo'') are a Cushitic people, Cushitic ethnic group native to the Oromia region of Ethiopia and parts of Northern Kenya, who speak the Oromo language (also called ''Afaan Oromoo'' or ''Oromiffa''), ...
in a region of Jimma in Ethiopia were the first to recognize the energizing effect of the coffee plant. However, no direct evidence has been found earlier than the 15th century indicating who among the African populations used it as a stimulant, or where coffee was first cultivated. The story of
Kaldi
Kaldi or Khalid was a legendary Arab Ethiopian goatherd who discovered the coffee plant around 850 CE, according to popular legend, show some artwork depicting him, after which it entered the Islamic world and then the rest of the world.
Story
I ...
, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered the stimulating effect of coffee when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably
apocryphal
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...
.
Another legend attributes the discovery of coffee to Sheikh Omar. According to an old 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 in Yemen to a desert cave near Ousab (modern-day Wusab, about east of
Zabid
Zabid ( ar, زَبِيد) (also spelled Zabīd, Zabeed and Zebid) is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 people on Yemen's western coastal plain. It is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since ...
, Yemen). Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubbery but found them to be too bitter. He tried roasting the seeds to improve the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften the seed, 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.
Historical transmission
The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Ahmed al-Ghaffar in Yemen. It was here in
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a similar way to how it is prepared now. Coffee was used by Sufi circles to stay awake for their religious rituals.
Accounts differ on the origin of the coffee plant prior to its appearance in Yemen. From Ethiopia, coffee could have been introduced to Yemen via trade across the Red Sea. One account credits Muhammad
Ibn Sa'd
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Sa‘d ibn Manī‘ al-Baṣrī al-Hāshimī or simply Ibn Sa'd ( ar, ابن سعد) and nicknamed ''Scribe of Waqidi'' (''Katib al-Waqidi''), was a scholar and Arabian biographer. Ibn Sa'd was born in 784/785 C ...
for bringing the beverage to
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
from the African coast. Other early accounts say Ali ben Omar of the
Shadhili
The Shadhili Order ( ar, الطريقة الشاذلية) is a tariqah or Sufi order of Sunni Islam founded by al-Shadhili in the 13th century and is followed by millions of people around the world. Many followers (Arabic ''murids'', "seekers") ...
Sufi order was the first to introduce coffee to Arabia.
According to al Shardi, Ali ben Omar may have encountered coffee during his stay with the
Adal
Adal may refer to:
*A short form for Germanic names in ''aþala-'' (Old High German ''adal-''), "nobility, pedigree"; see Othalan
**Adál Maldonado (1948-2020), Puerto Rican artist
**Adal Ramones (born 1969), Mexican television show host
**Adal He ...
king
Sadadin's companions in 1401. Famous 16th-century Islamic scholar
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami
Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī al-Makkī al-Anṣārī known as Ibn Hajar al-Haytami al-Makki ( ar, ابن حجر الهيتمي المكي) was an Egyptian Arab muhaddith and theologi ...
notes in his writings a beverage called ''qahwa'' developed from a tree in the
Zeila
Zeila ( so, Saylac, ar, زيلع, Zayla), also known as Zaila or Zayla, is a historical port town in the western Awdal region of Somaliland.
In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila (or Hawilah) with the Bibli ...
region in
Somaliland
Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...
.
Coffee was first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen by
Somali merchants from
Berbera
Berbera (; so, Barbara, ar, بربرة) is the capital of the Sahil region of Somaliland and is the main sea port of the country. Berbera is a coastal city and was the former capital of the British Somaliland protectorate before Hargeisa. It ...
and Zeila in modern-day Somaliland, which was procured from
Harar
Harar ( amh, ሐረር; Harari: ሀረር; om, Adare Biyyo; so, Herer; ar, هرر) known historically by the indigenous as Gey (Harari: ጌይ ''Gēy'', ) is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia. It is also known in Arabic as the City of Saint ...
and the Abyssinian interior. According to Captain Haines, who was the colonial administrator of
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
(1839–1854), Mocha historically imported up to two-thirds of their coffee from Berbera-based merchants before the coffee trade of Mocha was captured by British-controlled Aden in the 19th century. Thereafter, much of the Ethiopian coffee was exported to Aden via Berbera.
![The_Vertue_of_the_COFFEE_Drink](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/The_Vertue_of_the_COFFEE_Drink.jpg)
By the 16th century, coffee had reached the rest of the Middle East,
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. The first coffee seeds were smuggled out of the Middle East by Sufi
Baba Budan
Baba Budan was a 17th-century Sufi, revered by both Muslims and Hindus, whose shrine is at Baba Budangiri, Chikkamagalur, Karnataka, India. He is said to have introduced the coffee plant to India by bringing seven raw beans from the port of Mocha, ...
from Yemen to India during the time. Before then, all exported coffee was boiled or otherwise sterilized. Portraits of Baba Budan depict him as having smuggled seven coffee seeds by strapping them to his chest. The first plants grown from these smuggled seeds were planted in
Mysore
Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...
.
Coffee had spread to Italy by 1600, and then to the rest of Europe,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, and the Americas.
In 1583,
Leonhard Rauwolf
Leonhard Rauwolf (also spelled Leonhart Rauwolff) (21 June 1535 – 15 September 1596) was a German physician, botanist, and traveller. His main notability arises from a trip he made through the Levant and Mesopotamia in 1573–75. The motive of t ...
, a German physician, gave this description of coffee after returning from a ten-year trip to the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
:
The thriving trade between
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and North Africa,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, and the Middle East (back then
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
) 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
Pope Clement VIII ( la, Clemens VIII; it, Clemente VIII; 24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605), born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1592 to his death in March 1605.
Born ...
in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink". The first European
coffee house
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non- ...
opened in Rome in 1645.
As a colonial import
The
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
was the first to import coffee on a large scale. The Dutch later grew the crop in
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
and
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
.
The first exports of
Indonesian coffee
Indonesia was the fourth-largest producer of coffee in the world in 2014.http://www.ico.org/prices/po-production.pdf Coffee cultivation in Indonesia began in the late 1600s and early 1700s, in the early Dutch colonial period, and has played an ...
from Java to the Netherlands occurred in 1711.
Through the efforts of the
British East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, coffee became popular in England as well. In a diary entry of May 1637,
John Evelyn
John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.
John Evelyn's diary, or memo ...
recorded tasting the drink at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in England, where it had been brought by a student of
Balliol College
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
from
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
named Nathaniel Conopios of Crete. Oxford's
Queen's Lane Coffee House
Queen's Lane Coffee House is a historic coffee house established by Cirques Jobson, a Levantine Jew from Syria. Dating back to 1654, it claims to be the oldest continually serving coffee house in Europe although, it has only been on the present ...
, 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
The Battle of Vienna; pl, odsiecz wiedeńska, lit=Relief of Vienna or ''bitwa pod Wiedniem''; ota, Beç Ḳalʿası Muḥāṣarası, lit=siege of Beç; tr, İkinci Viyana Kuşatması, lit=second siege of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mou ...
, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated
Turks
Turk or Turks may refer to:
Communities and ethnic groups
* Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages
* Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
* Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...
.
When coffee reached
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
during the Colonial period, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe, as alcoholic beverages remained more popular. During the
Revolutionary War, 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, and a general resolution among many Americans to avoid drinking tea following the 1773
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea ...
. After the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, during which Britain temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans' taste for coffee grew.
During the 18th century, coffee consumption declined in Britain, giving way to tea drinking. The latter beverage was simpler to make and had become cheaper with the British conquest of India and the tea industry there. During the
Age of Sail
The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid- 15th) to the mid- 19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval ...
,
seamen aboard ships of the British
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
made substitute coffee by dissolving burnt bread in hot water.
The Frenchman
Gabriel de Clieu
Gabriel-Mathieu Francois D'ceus de Clieu (c. 1687 – 29 November 1774) was a French naval officer and the governor of Guadeloupe from 1737 to 1752 and the founder of Pointe-à-Pitre. He was awarded the rank of commander of the Royal and Military ...
took a coffee plant to the French territory of
Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...
in the Caribbean in the 1720s, from which much of the world's cultivated arabica coffee is descended. Coffee thrived in the climate and was conveyed across the Americas. Coffee was cultivated in
Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...
(now
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
) from 1734, and by 1788 it supplied half the world's coffee.
The conditions that the slaves worked in on coffee plantations were a factor in the soon to follow
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt ...
. The coffee industry never fully recovered there. It made a brief come-back in 1949 when Haiti was the world's third largest coffee exporter, but declined rapidly after that.
Mass production
![MODOGlendora](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/MODOGlendora.jpg)
Meanwhile, coffee had been
introduced to Brazil in 1727, although its cultivation did not gather momentum until independence in 1822. After this time, massive tracts of
rainforest
Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...
were cleared for coffee plantations, first in the
vicinity of Rio de Janeiro and later
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
. Brazil went from having essentially no coffee exports in 1800 to being a significant regional producer in 1830, to being the largest producer in the world by 1852. In 1910–20, Brazil exported around 70% of the world's coffee,
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
,
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
, and
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
exported half of the remaining 30%, and Old World production accounted for less than 5% of world exports.
Cultivation was taken up by many countries in Central America in the latter half of the 19th century, and almost all involved the large-scale displacement and exploitation of the indigenous people. Harsh conditions led to many uprisings, coups, and bloody suppression of peasants. The notable exception was
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
, where lack of ready labor prevented the formation of large farms. Smaller farms and more egalitarian conditions ameliorated unrest over the 19th and 20th centuries.
Rapid growth in coffee production in South America during the second half of the 19th century was matched by growth in consumption in developed countries, though nowhere has this growth been as pronounced as in the United States, where a high rate of population growth was compounded by doubling of per capita consumption between 1860 and 1920. Though the United States was not the heaviest coffee-drinking nation at the time (
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; literal translation, lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmar ...
, Belgium, and the Netherlands all had comparable or higher levels of per capita consumption), due to its sheer size, it was already the largest consumer of coffee in the world by 1860, and, by 1920, around half of all coffee produced worldwide was consumed in the US.
Coffee has become a vital
cash crop
A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...
for many
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
. Over one hundred million people in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
have become dependent on coffee as their primary source of income. It has become the primary export and backbone for African countries like Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia,
as well as many Central American countries.
Biology
![Koeh-189](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Coffea_arabica_-_K%C3%B6hler%E2%80%93s_Medizinal-Pflanzen-189.jpg)
Several species of shrub of the genus ''
Coffea
''Coffea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the Family (biology), family Rubiaceae. ''Coffea'' species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are use ...
'' produce the berries from which coffee is extracted. The two main species commercially cultivated are ''
Coffea canephora
''Coffea canephora'' ( syn. ''Coffea robusta'', commonly known as ''robusta coffee'') is a species of coffee that has its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa. It is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. Though wid ...
'' (predominantly a form known as 'robusta') and ''
C. arabica''.
''C. arabica'', the most highly regarded species, is native to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia and the
Boma Plateau The Boma Plateau is a region in the east of South Sudan, located in the Jonglei and Eastern Equatoria provinces. It is inhabited by the Anuak, Murle and Toposa peoples. It contains important wetlands for birdlife in the region. Wildlife is threat ...
in southeastern Sudan and
Mount Marsabit
Marsabit is a 6300 km basaltic shield volcano in Kenya, located 170 km east of the center of the East African Rift, in Marsabit County near the town of Marsabit. This was primarily built during the Miocene, but some lava flows and explos ...
in northern
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
. ''C. canephora'' is native to western and central Subsaharan Africa, from
Guinea
Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...
to
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
and southern Sudan. Less popular species are ''
C. liberica'', ''
C. stenophylla'', ''C. mauritiana'', and ''C. racemosa''.
All coffee plants are classified in the large family
Rubiaceae
The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...
. They are
evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...
shrubs or trees that may grow 5 m (15 ft) tall when unpruned. The leaves are dark green and glossy, usually 10–15 cm (4–6 in) long and 6 cm (2.4 in) wide, simple, entire, and opposite.
Petioles of opposite leaves fuse at the base to form interpetiolar
stipules
In botany, a stipule is an outgrowth typically borne on both sides (sometimes on just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole). Stipules are considered part of the anatomy of the leaf of a typical flowering plant, although in many speci ...
, characteristic of
Rubiaceae
The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...
. The flowers are
axillary, and clusters of fragrant white flowers bloom simultaneously.
Gynoecium
Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...
consists of an inferior ovary, also characteristic of
Rubiaceae
The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...
. The flowers are followed by oval berries of about 1.5 cm (0.6 in).
When immature, they are green, and they ripen to yellow, then crimson, before turning black on drying. Each berry usually contains two seeds, but 5–10% of the berries have only one; these are called
peaberries. Arabica berries ripen in six to eight months, while robusta takes nine to eleven months.
''Coffea arabica'' is predominantly self-pollinating, and as a result, the seedlings are generally uniform and vary little from their parents. In contrast, ''Coffea canephora'', and ''C. liberica'' are self-incompatible and require
outcrossing
Out-crossing or out-breeding is the technique of crossing between different breeds. This is the practice of introducing distantly related genetic material into a breeding line, thereby increasing genetic diversity.
Outcrossing can be a useful ...
. This means that useful forms and hybrids must be propagated
vegetatively
Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or spec ...
.
[Wilson, K. C. in , p. 158.] Cuttings, grafting, and budding are the usual methods of vegetative propagation.
[Wilson, K. C. in , pp. 161–62.] On the other hand, there is great scope for experimentation in search of potential new strains.
[
]
Cultivation and production
The traditional method of planting coffee is to place 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season
The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs.
Rainy Season may also refer to:
* ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King
* "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni
* ''T ...
. This method loses about 50% of the seeds' potential, as about half fail to sprout. A more effective process of growing coffee, used in Brazil, is to raise seedlings in nurseries that are then planted outside after six to twelve months. Coffee is often intercropped
Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice that involves growing two or more crops in proximity. In other words, intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field. The most common goal of intercropping is ...
with food crops, such as corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, beans
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
, or rice during the first few years of cultivation as farmers become familiar with its requirements. Coffee plants grow within a defined area between the tropics of Cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
and Capricorn, termed the bean belt or coffee belt.
In 2020, the world production of green coffee beans was 175,647,000 60 kg bags, led by Brazil with 39% of the total, followed by Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
, and Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. Brazil is the largest coffee exporting nation, accounting for 15% of all world exports in 2019. As of 2021, no synthetic coffee products are publicly available but multiple bioeconomy
Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy is economic activity involving the use of biotechnology and biomass in the production of goods, services, or energy. The terms are widely used by regional development agencies, national and international ...
companies have reportedly produced first batches that are highly similar on the molecular level and are close to commercialization.
Species variations
Of the two main species grown, arabica coffee
''Coffea arabica'' (), also known as the Arabic coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to have been cultivated and is currently the dominant cultivar, r ...
(from ''C. arabica'') is generally more highly regarded than robusta coffee
''Coffea canephora'' ( syn. ''Coffea robusta'', commonly known as ''robusta coffee'') is a species of coffee that has its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa. It is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. Though wid ...
(from ''C. canephora''). Robusta coffee tends to be bitter and has less flavor but better body than arabica. For these reasons, about three-quarters of coffee cultivated worldwide is ''C. arabica''. Robusta strains also contain about 40–50% more caffeine than arabica. Consequently, this species is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robusta beans are used in traditional Italian espresso
Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and ...
blends to provide a full-bodied taste and a better foam head (known as ''crema'').
Additionally, ''Coffea canephora'' is less susceptible to disease than ''C. arabica'' and can be cultivated in lower altitudes and warmer climates where ''C. arabica'' will not thrive. The robusta strain was first collected in 1890 from the Lomani River
The Lomami River is a major tributary of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The river is approximately long. It flows north, west of and parallel to the upper Congo.
The Lomami rises in the south of the country, near Kamina ...
, a tributary of the Congo River
The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge ...
, and was conveyed from the Congo Free State (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to Brussels to Java around 1900. From Java, further breeding resulted in the establishment of robusta plantations in many countries. In particular, the spread of the devastating coffee leaf rust (''Hemileia vastatrix
''Hemileia vastatrix'' is a multicellular basidiomycete fungus of the order Pucciniales (previously also known as Uredinales) that causes coffee leaf rust (CLR), a disease affecting the coffee plant. Coffee serves as the obligate host of cof ...
''), to which ''C. arabica'' is vulnerable, hastened the uptake of the resistant robusta. ''Hemileia vastatrix'' is a fungal pathogen and results in light, rust-colored spots on the undersides of coffee plant leaves. ''Hemileia vastatrix'' grows exclusively on the leaves of coffee plants. Coffee leaf rust is found in virtually all countries that produce coffee.
Beans from different countries or regions can usually be distinguished by differences in flavor, aroma, body
Body may refer to:
In science
* Physical body, an object in physics that represents a large amount, has mass or takes up space
* Body (biology), the physical material of an organism
* Body plan, the physical features shared by a group of anima ...
, and acidity. These taste characteristics are dependent not only on the coffee's growing region, but also on genetic subspecies (varietals
A varietal wine is a wine made primarily from a single named grape variety, and which typically displays the name of that variety on the wine label.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.winepros.com.au. ...
) and processing. Varietals are generally known by the region in which they are grown, such as Colombian, Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
, and Kona. Arabica coffee beans are cultivated mainly in Latin America, eastern Africa or Asia, while robusta beans are grown in central Africa, southeast Asia, and Brazil.
Pests and treatments
''Mycena citricolor
''Mycena citricolor'' is a species of mushroom-forming fungus in the family Mycenaceae. It is a plant pathogen producing leaf spots on coffee plants. This fungus causes the disease commonly known as American Leaf Spot. ''Mycena citricolor'' aff ...
'', commonly referred to as American Leaf Spot, is a fungus that can affect the whole coffee plant. It can grow on leaves, resulting in leaves with holes that often fall from the plant. It is a threat primarily in Latin America.
Over 900 species of insect have been recorded as pests of coffee crops worldwide. Of these, over a third are beetles
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
, and over a quarter are bugs. Some 20 species of nematodes, 9 species of mites, and several snails and slugs also attack the crop. Birds and rodents sometimes eat coffee berries, but their impact is minor compared to invertebrates. In general, ''arabica'' is the more sensitive species to invertebrate predation overall. Each part of the coffee plant is assailed by different animals. Nematode
The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant-Parasitism, parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhab ...
s attack the roots, coffee borer beetle
''Hypothenemus hampei'', the coffee berry borer or coffee borer beetle, is a small beetle native to Africa. It is among the most harmful pests to coffee crops across the world where coffee is cultivated. Spanish common names of the insect include ...
s burrow into stems and woody material, and the foliage is attacked by over 100 species of larvae (caterpillars) of butterflies and moths.
Mass spraying of insecticides has often proven disastrous, as predators of the pests are more sensitive than the pests themselves. Instead, integrated pest management has developed, using techniques such as targeted treatment of pest outbreaks, and managing crop environment away from conditions favoring pests. Branches infested with scale are often cut and left on the ground, which causes scale parasites to not only attack the scale on the fallen branches but in the plant as well.
The 2-mm-long coffee borer beetle
''Hypothenemus hampei'', the coffee berry borer or coffee borer beetle, is a small beetle native to Africa. It is among the most harmful pests to coffee crops across the world where coffee is cultivated. Spanish common names of the insect include ...
(''Hypothenemus hampei'') is the most damaging insect pest to the world's coffee industry, destroying up to 50 percent or more of the coffee berries on plantations in most coffee-producing countries. The adult female beetle nibbles a single tiny hole in a coffee berry and lays 35 to 50 eggs. Inside, the offspring grow, mate, and then emerge from the commercially ruined berry to disperse, repeating the cycle. Pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...
s are mostly ineffective because the beetle juveniles are protected inside the berry nurseries, but they are vulnerable to predation by birds when they emerge. When groves of trees are nearby, the American yellow warbler
The yellow warbler (''Setophaga petechia'') is a New World warbler species. Yellow warblers are the most widespread species in the diverse genus ''Setophaga'', breeding in almost the whole of North America, the Caribbean, and down to northern S ...
, rufous-capped warbler
The rufous-capped warbler (''Basileuterus rufifrons'') is a New World warbler native from Mexico south to Guatemala, rarely occurring as far north as southeastern Arizona and south Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a s ...
, and other insectivorous birds have been shown to reduce by 50 percent the number of coffee berry borers in Costa Rica coffee plantations.
Ecological effects
Originally, coffee farming was done in the shade of trees that provided a habitat for many animals and insects. Remnant forest trees were used for this purpose, but many species have been planted as well. These include leguminous trees of the genera ''Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
'', ''Albizia
''Albizia'' is a genus of more than 160 species of mostly fast-growing subtropical and tropical trees and shrubs in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. The genus is pantropical, occurring in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, America and A ...
'', '' Cassia'', ''Erythrina
''Erythrina'' is a genus of plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It contains about 130 species, which are distributed in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. They are trees, with the larger species growing up to in height. The generic na ...
'', ''Gliricidia
''Gliricidia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae and tribe Robinieae. Its native range is Mexico to Peru, but ''Gliricidia sepium'' has been widely introduced to other tropical zones.
The species ''G. sepium'' is a sm ...
'', ''Inga
''Inga'' is a genus of small tropical, tough-leaved, nitrogen-fixing treesElkan, Daniel. "Slash-and-burn farming has become a major threat to the world's rainforest" ''The Guardian'' 21 April 2004 and shrubs, subfamily Mimosoideae. ''Inga''s l ...
'', and ''Leucaena
''Leucaena'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mimosoid clade of the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the family Fabaceae. It contains about 24 species of trees and shrubs, which are commonly known as leadtrees. They are native to the Americas, ...
'', as well as the nitrogen-fixing non-legume sheoaks of the genus ''Casuarina
''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in the fami ...
'', and the silky oak ''Grevillea robusta
''Grevillea robusta'', commonly known as the southern silky oak, silk oak or silky oak, silver oak or Australian silver oak, is a flowering plant in the family Proteaceae. It is a tree, the largest species in its genus but is not closely rela ...
''.
This method is commonly referred to as the traditional shaded method, or " shade-grown". Starting in the 1970s, many farmers switched their production method to 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, which damage the environment and cause health problems.
Unshaded coffee plants grown with fertilizer yield the most coffee, although unfertilized shaded crops generally yield more than unfertilized unshaded crops: the response to fertilizer is much greater in full sun. While traditional coffee production causes berries to ripen more slowly and produce lower yields, the quality of the coffee is allegedly superior. In addition, the traditional shaded method provides living space for many wildlife species. Proponents of shade cultivation say environmental problems such as deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...
, pesticide pollution
The environmental effects of pesticides describe the broad series of consequences of using pesticides. The unintended consequences of pesticides is one of the main drivers of the negative impact of modern industrial agriculture on the environme ...
, habitat destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...
, and soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
and water degradation are the side effects of the practices employed in sun cultivation.[
]
The American Birding Association
The American Birding Association (ABA) is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, dedicated to recreational birding in Canada and the United States. It has been called "the standard-bearer for serious birding in North America." Originally con ...
, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is a research program dedicated to fostering greater understanding, appreciation, and protection of bird migration. It is located at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
History
This Smithsoni ...
, National Arbor Day Foundation
The Arbor Day Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. The Arbor Day Foundation has more than one million members and has planted more than 350 million trees in neighborhoods, communities ...
, and the Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) with staff in more than 20 countries and operations in more than 70 countries. It was founded in 1987 by Daniel Katz, an American environmental activist, who serves ...
have led a campaign for 'shade-grown' and organic coffee
Organic coffee is coffee produced without the aid of artificial chemical substances, such as certain additives or some pesticides and herbicides.
Meaning of organic
Many factors are taken into consideration when coffee is considered for organic ...
s, which can be sustainably harvested. Shaded coffee cultivation systems show greater biodiversity than full-sun systems, and those more distant from continuous forest compare rather poorly to undisturbed native forest in terms of habitat value for some bird species.
Coffee production uses a large volume of water. On average it takes about of water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
to grow the coffee beans needed to produce one cup of coffee. Growing the plants needed to produce of roasted coffee in Africa, South America or Asia requires of water. As with many other forms of agriculture, often much of this is rainwater
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water fo ...
, much of which would otherwise run off into rivers or coastlines, while much water actually absorbed by the plants is transpired straight back into the local environment through the plants' leaves (especially for cooling effects); broad estimates aside, consequential margins vary considerably based on details of local geography and horticultural
Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
practice. Coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
.
Used coffee grounds
Used coffee grounds is the result of brewing coffee, and are the final product after preparation of coffee. Despite having several highly-desirable chemical components, used coffee grounds are generally regarded as waste, and they are usually t ...
may be used for compost
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...
ing or as a mulch
A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of soil. Reasons for applying mulch include conservation of soil moisture, improving fertility and health of the soil, reducing weed growth and enhancing the visual appeal of the area.
A m ...
. They are especially appreciated by worms and acid-loving plants such as blueberries
Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' within the genus ''Vaccinium''. ''Vaccinium'' also includes cranberries, bi ...
. Climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
may significantly impact coffee yields during the 21st century, such as in Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
and Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
which could lose more than half of the farming land suitable for growing (Arabica) coffee. As of 2016, at least 34% of global coffee production was compliant with voluntary sustainability standards such as Fairtrade
A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa, As ...
, UTZ, and 4C (The Common Code for the Coffee Community).
Preprocessing
Coffee berries are traditionally selectively picked by hand, which is labor-intensive as it involves the selection of only the berries at the peak of ripeness. More commonly, crops are strip picked, where all berries are harvested simultaneously regardless of ripeness by person or machine. After picking, green coffee is processed by one of two types of method—a dry process method which is often simpler and less labor-intensive, and a wet process method, which incorporates batch fermentation, uses larger amounts of water in the process, and often yields a milder coffee.
Then they are sorted by ripeness and color, and most often the flesh
Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscle
Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as mu ...
of the berry is removed, usually by machine, and the seeds are fermented to remove the slimy layer of mucilage
Mucilage is a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms. These microorganisms include protists which use it for their locomotion. The direction of their movement is always opposite to that of the secretion of m ...
still present on the seed. When the fermentation
Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food ...
is finished, the seeds are washed with large quantities of fresh water
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
to remove the fermentation residue, which generates massive amounts of coffee wastewater
Coffee wastewater, also known as coffee effluent, is a byproduct of coffee processing. Its treatment and disposal is an important environmental consideration for coffee processing as wastewater is a form of industrial water pollution.
The unpick ...
. Finally, the seeds are dried.
The best (but least used) method of drying coffee is using drying tables. In this method, the pulped and fermented coffee is spread thinly on raised beds, which allows the air to pass on all sides of the coffee, and then the coffee is mixed by hand. The drying that then takes place is more uniform, and fermentation is less likely. Most African coffee is dried in this manner and certain coffee farms around the world are starting to use this traditional method. Next, the coffee is sorted, and labeled as green coffee. Some companies use cylinders to pump in heated air to dry the coffee seeds, though this is generally in places where the humidity is very high.
An Asian coffee known as kopi luwak
Kopi luwak, also known as civet coffee, is a coffee that consists of partially digested coffee cherries, which have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet (''Paradoxurus hermaphroditus''). The cherries are fermented as they pass throug ...
undergoes a peculiar process made from coffee berries eaten by the Asian palm civet
The Asian palm civet (''Paradoxurus hermaphroditus''), also called common palm civet, toddy cat and musang, is a viverrid native to South and Southeast Asia. Since 2008, it is IUCN Red Listed as Least Concern as it accommodates to a broad range ...
, passing through its digestive tract, with the beans eventually harvested from feces
Feces ( or faeces), known colloquially and in slang as poo and poop, are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relati ...
. Coffee brewed from this process is among the most expensive in the world, with bean prices reaching $160 per pound or $30 per brewed cup. Kopi luwak coffee is said to have a uniquely rich, slightly smoky aroma and flavor with hints of chocolate, resulting from the action of digestive enzymes
Digestive enzymes are a group of enzymes that break down polymeric macromolecules into their smaller building blocks, in order to facilitate their absorption into the cells of the body. Digestive enzymes are found in the digestive tracts of anim ...
breaking down bean protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...
s to facilitate partial fermentation
Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food ...
. In Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
, black ivory coffee beans are fed to elephants whose digestive enzymes reduce the bitter taste of beans collected from dung. These beans sell for up to $1,100 a kilogram ($500 per lb), achieving the world's most expensive coffee, three times costlier than palm civet coffee beans.
Processing
Roasting
The next step in the process is the roasting of green coffee. Coffee is usually sold in a roasted state, and with rare exceptions, such as infusions from green coffee beans, coffee is roasted before it is consumed. It can be sold roasted
Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization ...
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 and increases in volume, causing it to become less dense. The density of the bean also influences the strength of the coffee and the requirements for packaging.
The actual roasting begins when the temperature inside the bean reaches approximately , though different varieties of seeds differ in moisture and density and therefore roast at different rates. During roasting, caramelization
Caramelization is a process of browning of sugar used extensively in cooking for the resulting sweet nutty flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: caramelans (C24H36O18), caramelens (C36H50O25), and c ...
occurs as intense heat breaks down starch
Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets ...
es, changing them to simple sugar
Monosaccharides (from Greek ''monos'': single, '' sacchar'': sugar), also called simple sugars, are the simplest forms of sugar and the most basic units (monomers) from which all carbohydrates are built.
They are usually colorless, water-solub ...
s that begin to brown, which darkens the color of the bean.
Sucrose
Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula .
For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...
is rapidly lost during the roasting process, and may disappear entirely in darker roasts. During roasting, aromatic oils and acids weaken, changing the flavor; at , other oils start to develop. One of these oils, caffeol
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of th ...
, is created at about , which is largely responsible for coffee's aroma and flavor. The difference of caffeine content between a light roast and a dark roast is only about 0.1%.
Grading roasted beans
Depending on the color of the roasted beans as perceived by the human eye, they will be labeled as light, medium light, medium, medium dark, dark, or very dark. A more accurate method of discerning the degree of roast involves measuring the reflected light from roasted seeds illuminated with a light source in the near-infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
spectrum. This elaborate light meter uses a process known as spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
to return a number that consistently indicates the roasted coffee's relative degree of roast or flavor development. Coffee has, in many countries, been graded by size longer than it has been graded by quality. Grading is generally done with sieves, numbered to indicate the size of the perforations.
Roast characteristics
The degree of roast affects coffee flavor and body. The color of coffee after brewing is also affected by the degree of roasting. Darker roasts are generally bolder because they have less fiber content and a more sugary flavor. Lighter roasts have a more complex and therefore perceived stronger flavor from aromatic oils and acids otherwise destroyed by longer roasting times. Roasting does not alter the amount of caffeine in the bean, but does give less caffeine when the beans are measured by volume because the beans expand during roasting. A small amount of chaff is produced during roasting from the skin left on the seed after processing. Chaff is usually removed from the seeds by air movement, though a small amount is added to dark roast coffees to soak up oils on the seeds.
Decaffeination
Decaffeination
Decaffeination is the removal of caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves, and other caffeine-containing materials. Decaffeinated drinks contain typically 1–2% of the original caffeine content, and sometimes as much as 20%. Decaffeinated ...
of coffee seeds is done while the seeds are still green. Many methods can remove caffeine from coffee, but all involve either soaking the green seeds in hot water (often called the "Swiss water process") or steaming them, then using a solvent
A solvent (s) (from the Latin '' solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. Water is a solvent for ...
to dissolve caffeine-containing oils. Decaffeination is often done by processing companies, and the extracted caffeine is usually sold to the pharmaceutical industry.
Storage
Coffee is best stored in an airtight container made of ceramic, glass or non-reactive metal. Higher quality prepackaged coffee usually has a one-way valve that prevents air from entering while allowing the coffee to release gases. Coffee freshness and flavor is preserved when it is stored away from moisture, heat, and light. The tendency of coffee to absorb strong smells from food means that it should be kept away from such smells. Storage of coffee in refrigerators is not recommended due to the presence of moisture which can cause deterioration. Exterior walls of buildings that face the sun may heat the interior of a home, and this heat may damage coffee stored near such a wall. Heat from nearby ovens also harms stored coffee.
In 1931, a method of packing coffee in a sealed vacuum in cans was introduced. The roasted coffee was packed and then 99% of the air was removed, allowing the coffee to be stored indefinitely until the can was opened. Today this method is in mass use for coffee in a large part of the world.
Brewing
Coffee beans must be ground and drip brew, brewed to create a beverage. The criteria for choosing a method include flavor and economy. Almost all methods of preparing coffee require that the beans be ground and then mixed with hot water long enough to allow the flavor to emerge but not so long as to draw out bitter compounds. The liquid can be consumed after the spent grounds are removed. Brewing considerations include the fineness of the grind, the way in which the water is used to extract the flavor, the ratio of coffee grounds to water (the brew ratio), additional flavorings such as sugar, milk, and spices, and the technique to be used to separate spent grounds. Optimal coffee extraction occurs between . Ideal holding temperatures range from to as high as and the ideal serving temperature is .
Coffee beans may be ground in various ways. A burr grinder uses revolving elements to shear the seed; a blade grinder cuts the seeds with blades moving at high speed, and a mortar and pestle crushes the seeds. For most brewing methods a burr grinder is deemed superior because the grind is more even and the grind size can be adjusted. The type of grind is often named after the brewing method for which it is generally used. Turkish coffee, Turkish grind is the finest grind, while coffee percolator or French press
A French press, also known as a cafetière, ''cafetière à piston'', ''caffettiera a stantuffo'', press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks. In 1923 Ugo Paolini, an Ital ...
are the coarsest grinds. Most common grinds are between these two extremes: a medium grind is used in most home coffee-brewing machines.
Coffee may be brewed by several methods. It may be boiled, steeped, or pressurized:
Brewing coffee by boiling was the earliest method, and Turkish coffee is an example of this method. It is prepared by grinding or pounding the seeds to a fine powder, then adding it to water and bringing it to a boil for no more than an instant in a pot called a ''cezve'' or, in Greek, a μπρίκι : ''bríki'' (from Turkish ''ibrik''). This produces a strong coffee with a layer of foam on the surface and sediment (which is not meant for drinking) settling at the bottom of the cup.
Drip brewer, Drip brewers and coffeemaker, automatic coffeemakers brew coffee using gravity. In an automatic coffeemaker, hot water drips onto coffee grounds that are held in a paper, plastic, or perforated metal coffee filter, allowing the water to seep through the ground coffee while extracting its oils and essences. The liquid drips through the coffee and the filter into a carafe or pot, and the spent coffee preparation, grounds are retained in the filter.
In a coffee percolator, water is pulled under a pipe by gravity, which is then forced into a chamber above a filter by steam pressure created by boiling. The water then seeps through the grounds, and the process is repeated until terminated by removing from the heat, by an internal timer,
or by a thermostat that turns off the heater when the entire pot reaches a certain temperature.
The espresso
Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and ...
method forces hot pressurized water through finely ground coffee. As a result of brewing under high pressure (typically 9 Bar (unit), bar), the espresso beverage is more concentrated (as much as 10 to 15 times the quantity of coffee to water as gravity-brewing methods can produce) and has a more complex physical and chemical constitution. A well-prepared espresso has a reddish-brown foam called ''crema'' that floats on the surface. Other pressurized water methods include the moka pot and vacuum coffee maker. The AeroPress also works in a similar way, moving a column of water through a bed of coffee.
Cold brew coffee is made by steeping coarsely ground beans in cold water for several hours, then filtering them. This results in a brew lower in acidity than most hot-brewing methods.
Serving
Once brewed, coffee may be served in a variety of ways. Drip-brewed, percolated, or French-pressed/cafetière coffee may be served as ''white coffee'' with a dairy product such as milk or cream, or dairy substitute, or as ''black coffee'' with no such addition. It may be sweetened with sugar or artificial sweetener. When served cold, it is called ''iced coffee
Iced coffee is a coffee beverage served cold. It may be prepared either by brewing coffee normally (i.e. carafe, French press, etc.) and then serving it over ice or in cold milk or by brewing the coffee cold. In hot brewing, sweeteners and fla ...
''.
Espresso-based coffee has a variety of possible presentations. In its most basic form, an espresso is served alone as a ''shot'' or ''short black'', or with hot water added, when it is known as Caffè Americano. A long black is made by pouring a double espresso into an equal portion of water, retaining the crema (coffee), crema, unlike Caffè Americano. Milk is added in various forms to an espresso: steamed milk makes a latte, caffè latte, equal parts steamed milk and milk froth make a cappuccino, and a dollop of hot foamed milk on top creates a caffè macchiato. A flat white is prepared by adding steamed hot milk (microfoam) to two espresso shots. It has less milk than a latte, but both are varieties of coffee to which the milk can be added in such a way as to create a decorative surface pattern. Such effects are known as latte art.
Coffee is frequently served Iced coffee, iced. Popular options include Frappé coffee, Frappés, Iced latte, Iced lattes, or stronger brewed coffee served with ice.
Coffee can also be incorporated with alcohol to produce a variety of beverages: it is combined with whiskey in Irish coffee, and it forms the base of alcoholic coffee liqueurs such as Kahlúa and Tia Maria. Some craft beers have coffee or coffee extracts added to the beer, although porter and stout beers may have a coffee-like taste solely due to roasted grains.
Instant coffee
A number of products are sold for the convenience of consumers who do not want to prepare their own coffee or who do not have access to coffeemaking equipment. Instant coffee is dried into soluble powder or freeze drying, freeze-dried into granules that can be quickly dissolved in hot water. Originally invented in 1907, it rapidly gained in popularity in many countries in the post-war period, with Nescafé being the most popular product. Many consumers determined that the convenience in preparing a cup of instant coffee more than made up for a perceived inferior taste, although, since the late 1970s, instant coffee has been produced differently in such a way that is similar to the taste of freshly brewed coffee. Paralleling (and complementing) the rapid rise of instant coffee was the coffee vending machine invented in 1947 and widely distributed since the 1950s.
Japanese canned coffee, Canned coffee has been popular in Asian countries for many years, particularly in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. 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¢ a cup to produce. The machines can process up to 500 cups an hour, or 1,000 if the water is preheated.
Economics
Over 90 percent of coffee production takes place in developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
—mainly South America—while consumption happens primarily in industrialized economies. There are 25 million small producers who rely on coffee for a living worldwide. In Brazil, where almost a third of the world's coffee is produced, over five million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over three billion coffee plants; it is a more labor-intensive culture than alternative cultures of the same regions, such as sugar cane or cattle, as its cultivation is not automation, automated, requiring frequent human attention.
World production
Since the beginning of the 20th century, annual world production has grown to over 100 million Coffee bag, bags, which corresponds to six to seven million tonnes, whereas in 1825 only 100,000 tonnes were produced. More than 80% of the bags are exported each year.
Nearly 90 countries export coffee cherries, 60 of them developing countries, with coffee constituting the main export revenue for countries such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and formerly Haiti. The largest producer by far is Brazil (almost 30% of world production in 2015), followed by Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia.
Statistical data on world agricultural coffee production differs slightly depending on whether it comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO or the International Coffee Organization, ICO. However, these data are monitored monthly by the ICO and cross-checked, which makes the Organisation a more established reference for international market. Beyond the occasional overproduction crises and inventory differences, the volumes produced, traded, and consumed are following an upward trend.
Coffee production provides a living for about twenty-five million people, mainly small-scale producers, while imports, processing, and distribution provide a living for about one hundred to one hundred and ten million people.
Commodity market
Coffee is bought and sold as green coffee beans by roasters, investors, and price speculators as a tradable commodity in commodity markets and exchange-traded funds. Coffee futures contracts for Grade 3 washed arabicas are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange under ticker symbol KC, with contract deliveries occurring every year in March, May, July, September, and December. Higher and lower grade arabica coffees are sold through other channels. Futures contracts for robusta coffee are traded on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange and, since 2007, on the New York Intercontinental Exchange.
Dating to the 1970s, coffee has been incorrectly described by many, including historian Mark Pendergrast, as the world's "second most legally traded commodity". Instead, "coffee was the second most valuable commodity exported by developing countries," from 1970 to circa 2000. This fact was derived from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Commodity Yearbooks which show "Third World" commodity exports by value in the period 1970–1998 with crude oil in first place, coffee in second, followed by sugar, cotton, and others. Coffee continues to be an important commodity export for developing countries, but more recent figures are not readily available due to the shifting and politicized nature of the category "developing country".
International Coffee Day, which is claimed to have originated in Japan in 1983 with an event organized by the All Japan Coffee Association, takes place on 29 September in several countries. There are numerous trade associations and lobbying and other organizations representing the coffee industry.
Consumption
Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world daily which amounts to 2.5 cups of coffee consumed per person on average. Nordic countries
The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; literal translation, lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmar ...
are the highest coffee-consuming nations when measured per capita; consumption in Finland is the world's highest, close to or more than double that of Brazil; Italy; France; Greece; and Canada, which is the 10th-highest consumer, and close to triple coffee consumption in the United States, which ranked 25th in 2018. The top 10 coffee-consuming countries, measured per capita, per annum are:
#Finland –
#Norway –
#Iceland –
#Denmark –
#Netherlands –
#Sweden –
#Switzerland –
#Belgium –
#Luxembourg –
#Canada –
Economic impacts
Market volatility, and thus increased returns, during 1830 encouraged Brazilian entrepreneurs to shift their attention from gold to coffee, a crop hitherto reserved for local consumption. Concurrent with this shift was the commissioning of vital infrastructures, including approximately of railroads between 1860 and 1885. The creation of these railways enabled the importation of workers, to meet the enormous need for labor. This development primarily affected the State of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the Southern States of Brazil, most notably São Paulo, due to its favorable climate, soils, and terrain.
Coffee production in Brazil, Coffee production attracted immigration to Brazil, immigrants in search of better economic opportunities in the early 1900s. Mainly, these were Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, and Japanese nationals. For instance, São Paulo received approximately 733,000 immigrants in the decade preceding 1900, whilst only receiving approximately 201,000 immigrants in the six years to 1890. The production yield of coffee increases. In 1880, São Paulo produced 1.2 million bags (25% of total production), in 1888 2.6 million (40%), and in 1902 8 million bags (60%). Coffee is then 63% of the country's exports. The gains made by this trade allow sustained economic growth in the country.
The four years between planting a coffee and the first harvest extend seasonal variations in the price of coffee. The Brazilian Government is thus forced, to some extent, to keep strong price subsidies during production periods.
Fair trade
The concept of fair trade labeling, which guarantees coffee growers a negotiated preharvest price, began in the late 1980s with the Stichting Max Havelaar, Max Havelaar Foundation's labeling program in the Netherlands. In 2004, 24,222 metric tons (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% to 0.51%. A number of fair trade impact studies have shown that fair trade coffee produces a mixed impact on the communities that grow it. Many studies are skeptical about fair trade, reporting that it often worsens the bargaining power of those who are not part of it. The very first fair-trade coffee was an effort to import Guatemalan coffee into Europe as "Indio Solidarity Coffee".
Since the founding of organizations such as the European Fair Trade Association (1987), the production and consumption of fair trade coffee has grown as some local and national coffee chains started to offer fair trade alternatives. For example, in April 2000, after a year-long campaign by the human rights organization Global Exchange, Starbucks decided to carry fair-trade coffee in its stores. Since September 2009 all Starbucks Espresso beverages in UK and Ireland are made with Fairtrade and Shared Planet certified coffee.
A 2005 study done in Belgium concluded that consumers' buying behavior is not consistent with their positive attitude toward ethical products. On average 46% of European consumers claimed to be willing to pay substantially more for ethical products, including fair-trade products such as coffee. The study found that the majority of respondents were unwilling to pay the actual price premium of 27% for fair trade coffee.
Speciality coffee and new trading relationships
Speciality coffee has driven a desire for more traceable coffee, and as such businesses are offering coffees that may come from a single origin, or a single lot from a single farm. This can give rise to the roaster developing a relationship with the producer, to discuss and collaborate on coffee. The roaster may also choose to cut out the importers and exporters to directly trade with the producer, or they may "fairly trade", where any third-parties involved in the transaction are thought to have added value, and there is a high level of transparency around the price, although often there is no certification to back it up. This process tends to only be done for high-quality products since keeping the coffee separate from other coffees adds costs, and so only coffee that roasters believe can command a higher price will be kept separate.
Some coffee is sold through internet auction – much of it is sold through a competition, with coffees passing through local and international jurors, and then the best coffees being selected to be bid on. Some estates known for high-quality coffee also sell their coffee through an online auction. This can lead to increased price transparency since the final price paid is usually published.
Pharmacology
Brewed coffee from typical grounds has no essential nutrients in significant content. In espresso
Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and ...
, however, likely due to its higher amount of suspended solids, there are significant contents of magnesium, the B vitamins, Niacin (substance), niacin and riboflavin, and 212 mg of caffeine per 100 grams of grounds.
One psychoactive chemical in coffee is caffeine
Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine t ...
, an adenosine receptor receptor antagonist, antagonist that is known for its stimulant effects. Coffee also contains the monoamine oxidase inhibitors β-carboline and harmane, which may contribute to its psychoactivity. In a healthy liver, caffeine is mostly broken down by hepatic enzymes. The excreted metabolites are mostly paraxanthines—theobromine and theophylline—and a small amount of unchanged caffeine. Therefore, the metabolism of caffeine depends on the state of this enzymatic system of the liver.
Polyphenols in coffee have been shown to affect radical (chemistry), free radicals in vitro, but there is no evidence that this effect occurs in humans. Polyphenol levels vary depending on how beans are roasted as well as for how long. As interpreted by the Linus Pauling Institute and the European Food Safety Authority, dietary polyphenols, such as those ingested by consuming coffee, have little or no direct antioxidant value following ingestion.
A 2017 review of clinical trials found that drinking coffee is generally safe within usual levels of intake and is more likely to improve health outcomes than to cause harm at doses of 3 or 4 cups of coffee daily. Exceptions include possible increased risk in women having bone fractures, and a possible increased risk in pregnant women of Miscarriage, fetal loss or Small for gestational age, decreased birth weight. Results were complicated by poor study quality, and differences in age, gender, health status, and serving size.
Caffeine content
Depending on the type of coffee and method of preparation, the caffeine
Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine t ...
content of a single serving can vary greatly. The caffeine content of a cup of coffee varies depending mainly on the brewing method, and also on the coffee variety. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database, a cup of "coffee brewed from grounds" contains 95 mg caffeine, whereas an espresso (25 mL) contains 53 mg. According to an article in the ''Journal of the American Dietetic Association'', coffee has the following caffeine content, depending on how it is prepared:
Caffeine remains stable up to and completely decomposes around . Given that roasting temperatures do not exceed for long and rarely if ever reach , the caffeine content of a coffee is not likely changed much by the roasting process.
Society and culture
Coffee is often consumed alongside (or instead of) breakfast by many at home or when eating out at diners or cafeterias. It is often served at the end of a formal meal, normally with a dessert, and at times with an after-dinner mint, especially when consumed at a restaurant or dinner party.
Coffeehouses
Widely known as coffeehouses or cafés, establishments serving prepared coffee or other hot beverages have existed for over five hundred years. The first coffeehouse in Constantinople was opened in 1475 by traders arriving from Damascus and Aleppo.
A contemporary term for a person who makes coffee beverages, often a coffeehouse employee, is a ''barista''. The Specialty Coffee Association of Europe and the Specialty Coffee Association of America have been influential in setting standards and providing training.
Break
A coffee break
A break at work (or work-break) is a period of time during a shift in which an employee is allowed to take time off from their job. It is a type of downtime. There are different types of breaks, and depending on the length and the employer' ...
in the United States and elsewhere is a short mid-morning rest period granted to employees in business and industry, corresponding with the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth terms "elevenses", "smoko" (in Australia), "morning tea", "tea break", or even just "tea". An afternoon coffee break, or afternoon tea, often occurs as well.
The coffee break originated in the late 19th century in Stoughton, Wisconsin, with the wives of Norwegian immigrants. The city celebrates this every year with the Stoughton Coffee Break Festival. In 1951, Time (magazine), ''Time'' noted that "[s]ince the war, the coffee break has been written into union contracts". The term subsequently became popular through a Pan-American Coffee Bureau ad campaign of 1952 which urged consumers, "Give yourself a Coffee-Break – and Get What Coffee Gives to You." John B. Watson, a behavioral psychologist who worked with Maxwell House later in his career, helped to popularize coffee breaks within the American culture.
Prohibition and condemnation
Historically, several religious groups have prohibited or condemned the consumption of coffee. The permissibility of coffee was debated in the Islamic world during the early 16th century, variously being permitted or prohibited until it was ultimately accepted by the 1550s. Contention existed among Ashkenazi Jews as to whether coffee was acceptable for Passover until it was certified Kosher foods, kosher in 1923. Some Christian groups, such as Mormons and Seventh-day Adventist Church, Seventh-day Adventists, discourage the consumption of coffee.
Furthermore, coffee has been prohibited for political and economic reasons. King Charles II of England outlawed coffeehouses to quell perceived rebellion. King Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick the Great banned it in Prussia, concerned about the price of importing of coffee without production colonies. Sweden prohibited coffee in the 18th century for the same reasons. Coffee has seldom been prohibited based on its intoxicating effect.
Folklore and culture
There are many stories about coffee and its impact on people and society. The Oromo people
The Oromo (pron. Oromo language, Oromo: ''Oromoo'') are a Cushitic people, Cushitic ethnic group native to the Oromia region of Ethiopia and parts of Northern Kenya, who speak the Oromo language (also called ''Afaan Oromoo'' or ''Oromiffa''), ...
would customarily plant a coffee tree on the graves of powerful sorcerers. They believed that the first coffee bush sprang up from the tears that the god of heaven shed over the corpse of a dead sorcerer. Johann Sebastian Bach was inspired to compose the humorous ''Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, Coffee Cantata'', about Caffeine dependence, dependence on the beverage, which was controversial in the early 18th century.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffee
Arabic words and phrases
Coffee,
Crops
Herbal and fungal stimulants
Hot drinks
Non-alcoholic drinks