Coffee Facts/Mythology
Coffee is grown around what is called 'The Bean Belt', a horizontal area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Speciality coffee is a term for the highest grade of coffee available and relates to the entire supply chain. The widely accepted definition of speciality coffee is coffee scoring 80 points or above on the 100-point Coffee Review scale where 90-100 is Outstanding, 85-89.9 is Excellent and 80-84.99 is Very Good. This is carried out by a Certified Coffee Taster or by a licensed Q Grader. Green coffee is graded by visual inspection and cupping, which involves roasting the coffee and brewing simply with hot water and a course grind in accordance with the Speciality Coffee Association guidelines.
Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia but was not roasted, ground and drunk, Ethiopian nomads would eat the coffee, crushed and mixed with fat into golf-ball sized treats. Yemen is the home of coffee the drink, mocha the Yemen port coffee was exported from. It is thought that slaves from Ethiopia, who ate the coffee golf-ball treats and were being transported to the Middle East were accidentally the first exporters of coffee. Some Ethiopian rangers say the old slave trails are still shaded by the coffee trees that have grown from their discarded meals.
There are many stories as to why coffee's popularity expanded and my favourite involves a holy man and a goatherd. An Ethiopian goatherd one day noticed one of his goats dancing about and baaing like a maniac after nibbling the berries of a certain plant. The goatherd tried a few himself and was soon dancing about, too. A holy man wandered by and asked the boy why he was dancing with a goat. The goatherd pointed to the berries. The monk took some berries home and found that after eating them he could not sleep. It so happened that this holy man was famous for his rather tedious all night sermons and was having trouble keeping his disciples awake. He immediately ordered all his disciples to chew the bean before his sermon. The disciples' sleepiness vanished and word spread about the great prophet whose electrifying wisdom kept you awake until dawn.
Coffee first arrived in Europe in the 16th Century in Malta. It was prepared and drunk by Turkish prisoners from the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. Shortly after, around 1583, coffee became available around Europe and one of the UK's first coffee houses, The Queen's Lane Coffee House in Oxford opened in 1654. The proprietor was a Pasqua Rosee, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods and its still in existence today.
Before coffee was established in UK society, the average European, including women and children, were drinking three litres of beer a day and with a higher alcohol content than today. People in positions of power drank even more with Finnish soldiers given a ration of five litres of strong ale a day! In the 1650's there was one coffee house in London, by 1700 there were 2,000.
Lloyds of London was started in Edward Lloyds' coffee house on Tower Street in 1688. Ship owners and merchants were said to have placed bets for and against merchant ships reaching port and so inventing insurance. Messengers at The London Stock Exchange, when there was a trading floor, were called waiters, a holdover from the distant days when the exchange was an actual coffee house with waiters. Tatler, the first modern magazine was created by Richard Steele to publish the weekly gossip from the coffeehouses and modern journalism was born. Coffee is therefore seen as the creator of the industrial age as copious ale consumption was replaced with coffee, meaning business talks weren't forgotten in a drunken haze. Look at the portraits of pre-coffee plump nobles to those of post-coffee slimmer nobles.
There are two main types of coffee, Arabica and Robusta and there is a significant difference between the two. Arabica beans tend to be sweeter and softer in taste with hints of fruit and berry. Robusta in comparison has a stronger, harsher earthy taste and a peanut aftertaste. Robusta beans, favoured in supermarket coffee, instant and cheap ground coffee, contains twice as much caffeine than Arabica and the trees reach maturity far quicker than Arabica trees. Robusta beans are grown at lower altitudes than Arabica and easier to grow being less vulnerable to pests and weather conditions.
While different roasting profiles influence taste, the courseness of the grind also plays an important part. Extra fine is reserved for Turkish coffee, fine for Espresso, medium fine/medium for Aeropress, cone-shaped pour-over & drip machines, Medium-course for Chemex, Course for French Press & Perculator and Extra course for Cold Brew & Cowboy Coffee. The rule of thumb therefore is the longer the water soaks into the coffee the courser the grind.
