Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It has the highest sales in the world market for hot drinks.
The seeds of the Coffea plant's fruits are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are roasted and then ground into fine particles typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, producing a cup of coffee. It is usually served hot, although chilled or iced coffee is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or already-brewed canned coffee). Sugar, sugar substitutes, milk, and cream are often added 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 earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking as the modern beverage appears in modern-day Yemen in southern Arabia in the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines, where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a manner similar to how it is now prepared for drinking. The coffee beans were procured by the Yemenis from the Ethiopian Highlands via coastal Somali intermediaries, and cultivated in Yemen. By the 16th century, the drink had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, later spreading to Europe.
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. As of 2023, Brazil was the leading grower of coffee beans, producing 35% of the world's total. Green, unroasted coffee is traded as an agricultural commodity. Despite coffee sales 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. The global coffee industry is massive and worth $495.50 billion as of 2023. Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia are the top exporters of coffee beans as of 2023.
Etymology
The word coffee entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve (قهوه), borrowed in turn from the Arabic qahwah. Medieval Arab lexicographers traditionally held that the etymology of qahwah meant 'wine', given its distinctly dark color, and was derived from the verb qahiya, 'to have no appetite'. The word qahwah most likely meant 'the dark one', referring to the brew or the bean; qahwah is not the name of the bean, which are known in Arabic as bunn and in Cushitic languages as būn. Semitic languages had the root qhh, 'dark color', which became a natural designation for the beverage. Its cognates include the Hebrew qehe(h) ('dulling') and the Aramaic qahey ('give acrid taste to'). Although etymologists have connected it with a word meaning "wine", it is also thought to be from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia.
The terms coffee pot and coffee break originated in 1705 and 1952, respectively.
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, where 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 before 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 for bringing the beverage to Aden from the African coast, other early accounts say Ali ben Omar of the Shadhili Sufi order was the first to introduce coffee to Arabia.
16th-century Islamic scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami notes in his writings that a beverage called qahwa developed from a tree in the Zeila region located in the Horn of Africa. Coffee was first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen by Somali merchants from Berbera and Zeila in modern-day Somaliland, which was procured from Harar and the Abyssinian interior. According to Captain Haines, who was the colonial administrator of Aden (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. After that, much of the Ethiopian coffee was exported to Aden via Berbera.
By the 16th century, coffee had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa. The first coffee seeds were smuggled out of the Middle East by Sufi Baba Budan 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 from these smuggled seeds were planted in Mysore.
Coffee had spread to Italy by 1600 and then to the rest of Europe, Indonesia, and the Americas.
In 1583, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, gave this description of coffee after returning from a ten-year trip to the Near East:
The thriving trade between Venice and North Africa and the Middle East (back then Ottoman Empire) brought many goods, including coffee, to the Venetian port. From Venice, it was introduced to the rest of Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was deemed a Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink". The first European coffee house opened in Venice in 1647.
If you want to read a WHOLE LOT more, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
- YIELDS
- 8 slices
- COOK TIME
- 40 Min
Do you love bacon? How about cheese? If you nodded enthusiastically to either of those, then you're about to experience something wonderful...a Bacon and Cheese Lover's Pie. It's a quiche-style dish that's absolutely loaded with cheese, bacon, and some chopped spinach. You'll be smiling from your first forkful to your last.
- 1 refrigerated pie crust (from a 17-ounce package)
- 1 1/2 cup (6 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 1/2 cup (6 ounces) shredded Swiss cheese
- 1/2 cup real bacon bits
- 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cup half-and-half
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Preheat oven to 350º. Place pie crust in a 9-inch deep dish pie plate and flute edges.
- In a medium bowl, combine cheddar and Swiss cheeses; sprinkle half the mixture into bottom of pie crust. Sprinkle bacon bits over cheese, top with spinach, then remaining cheese.
- In the same bowl, combine eggs, half-and-half, onion powder, and pepper; beat until thoroughly mixed. Pour into pie crust; sprinkle with nutmeg.
- Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack 5 minutes before cutting and serving.
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