20 Fun Facts About Coffee!

1. Coffee is the world’s 2nd largest traded commodity - it’s a $100 billion dollar industry. Crude oil is first.

2. Finland consumes the most coffee in the world.

3. Brazil couldn’t afford to send its athletes to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympics, so the government loaded them in a ship full of coffee which was sold on the way to finance their trip.

3. After coffee beans are decaffeinated, several coffee manufacturers sell the caffeine to soda and pharmaceutical companies.

4. Coffee beans are only called 'beans' because of the resemblance - they’re actually berries.

5. 40% of the world's coffee is grown in Brazil.

6. In ancient Arab culture, a woman could only divorce her husband if he didn’t like her coffee.

7. It was said that coffee was discovered by a goat herder in Ethiopia in the 1500s.  He saw his goats eating coffee cherries and afterwards, he observed a change in their behaviour. They gained a high amount of energy and they didn’t sleep at night!

8. According to the International Coffee Association, Europe imports more coffee than the USA

9. Drinking a single cup of coffee that has been brewing for 20 minutes provides the body with 300 phytochemicals which act as antioxidants and stay in the body for up to a month.

10. Scientists have successfully turned ground coffee into biodiesel, so one day coffee may be fuelling your brain and your car!

11. Beethoven was the original coffee snob -  he’d count 60 beans per cup before making his brew.

12. Globally people consume about 2.25 billion cups of coffee every day.

13. “Kopi Luwak” comes from Indonesia and is made from beans digested from the Asian Palm Civet. In other words, it comes from cat poop.  It sells for $500 and up per kilo.

14. The most expensive coffee in the world is Black Ivory Coffee. It can cost up to $1,100 per kilogram. This coffee is produced from part-digested coffee cherries eaten and defecated by Thai elephants.

15. The average barista's age in Italy is 48 years old.

16. The word espresso comes from Italian and means “expressed” or “forced out”. Espresso is made by forcing very hot water under high pressure through finely ground, compacted coffee.

17. Scientists have discovered more than 800 different aromatic compounds in coffee. These aromatic compounds are what gives each type of coffee it’s unique flavor, colour, scent and texture. 

18. North Korea holds the record for the largest iced coffee. The cup contained 14,228.1 litres of iced Americano coffee.

19. Coffee was banned in Mecca in 1511. It was believed to stimulate radical thinking and idleness

20. A coffee tree lives for between 60 and 70 years. The Coffea arabica tree will grow it’s fruit after three to five years, producing for an average of 50 to 60 years, although up to 100 is possible. The white flowers are highly scented and the fruit takes about 9 months to ripen.

We hope you enjoyed these fun facts about coffee and learnt something new! You can get your coffee fix here

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