Coffee | Happy Monday!

Coffee
   cof-fee

      [kaw-fee, kof-ee]

1.  a beverage consisting of a decoction or infusion of theroasted ground or crushed seeds (coffee beans)  of the two-seeded fruit (coffee berry)  of certain coffee trees.
2.   the seeds or fruit themselves.
3. any tropical tree or shrub of the genus Coffea,  of themadder family, esp. C. arabica  and C. canephora,  cultivatedcommercially. Compare Arabian coffee, robusta coffee.

It's estimated that coffee originated in an Ethiopian province called Kaffa in the 9th century. By the 13th century, it became trendy in Arabia, with trees grown in India sometime after 1600, and by 1650 coffee was imported in to England with coffee houses opening in London and Oxford.


The two most commonly grown species of the coffee plant are Coffea canephora (used in instant coffees and espressos) and C. arabica (said to produce a better over all coffee), which are cultivated in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.  Arabica coffee is by far the most popular variety because of it's smooth taste and aromatic qualities. Basically coffee berries are picked, processed (flesh removed from around the coffee beans), and then they're dried. The seeds are roasted at temperatures around 200°C (392°F), during which the sugars in the bean caramelize, the bean changes color to a light, medium, or a dark brown, depending on the desired flavor, and the true flavor develops.  The beans are then ground and brewed in order to create that $9 billion a year (U.S.) beverage we call coffee!