|
|
| |
Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, trailing only oil. Yet according to a May study, we're not using our coffee resources properly.
Most people quaff the stuff liberally in the morning, and not so much after that. But research led by Dr. James Wyatt at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago suggests that drinking a little throughout the day--just two ounces per hour--may do more to boost alertness. Says Dr. Wyatt, "I hate to say it, but most of the population is using caffeine the wrong way by drinking a few mugs of coffee or tea in the morning, or three cups from their Starbucks grande on the way to work." Drip method, anyone?
Who First Knew How to Brew?
|
|
Coffee's story--like many good stories--begins with a goat. Legend has it that a herdsman in Ethiopia noticed that his goat was acting kind of funny. It was unusually alert, maybe even a little jittery.
Looking closer, the herdsman saw that the goat had been nibbling on the red berries of a certain bush. Being of a scientific temperament, the herdsman experimented by eating a few of the berries himself, and soon he and the goat were capering around together. The rest, as they say, is history.
Still, loopy Ethiopian goats are a long way from the dark and aromatic drink you probably had with breakfast. For coffee to become a thoroughly human beverage, someone had to go beyond just eating coffee berries. Someone had to realize that it wasn't the fruit of the berry that's so invigorating, it's the bean contained inside.
Enter the Arabs, generally credited with being the first to consume a coffee beverage. They separated the bean from the pulp and skin, crushed it, and then mixed it with water to make a drink called qahwa or, in Turkish, kahveh. By the 14th century, the Arabs were roasting their beans, too, but it took a while longer before someone had the idea of filtering out the grounds, for a less gritty drink.
The Arabs controlled the trade of coffee beans and fought to maintain their monopoly--foreigners could be put to death if caught smuggling a live coffee seedling. But word of the "wine of Araby" spread. At first, many Europeans were suspicious. Opponents called it the "bitter invention of Satan," and priests urged parishioners to resist drinking in the sin. It wasn't until Pope Clement VIII tasted coffee for himself in 1600, and gave it a thumbs-up, that coffee began to lose the taint of being evil to the last drop.
By the end of the 17th century, hundreds of coffeehouses graced Europe, and the Dutch had managed to break the Arab monopoly on the coffee trade, smuggling seedlings to the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. Not long after, the king of France received a coffee plant as a gift from the mayor of Amsterdam, and a seedling from that plant--taken to Martinique in 1723--gave rise to the coffee of Central and South America.
History does not remember the name of the caffeinated visionary who first thought to mix a little milk into his coffee. The origins of steamed milk, however, are better documented. In this case, it all got started with impatience. Looking for a way to make his coffee faster, in 1901 an Italian named Luigi Bezzera patented a machine that forced steam through the grounds, and espresso was born.
Espresso was much stronger than the coffee of old, but of course, coffee drinkers are always ready to be convinced that more caffeine is better than less. And when early pioneers used excess steam to warm milk before mixing it with their coffee, they discovered that steamed milk is frothy, foamy, and has a pleasant flavor all its own. Today, about a quarter of daily American coffee drinkers--110 million strong--prefer fancy-pants espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes to a traditional cup of joe.
Want to learn more?
Add up your caffeine intake with a caffeine calculator
From: KnowledgeNews
No comments:
Post a Comment