Coffee Trivia

From The Amazing Book of Useless Information

In 1727, using seedlings smuggled from Paris, coffee plants were first cultivated in Brazil.

The Arabs are generally believed to have been the first to brew coffee. The first commercially grown and harvested coffee originated in the Arabian Peninsula near the port of Mocha. Turkey began to roast and grind the coffee bean in the thirteenth century and, by the sixteenth century the country had become the chief distributor of coffee, with markets established in Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Venice. Coffee was first known in Europe as Arabian wine.

In the sixteenth century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family's pot filled with coffee.

Scandinavia has the world's highest per capita annual coffee consumption.

In Sumatra, workers on coffee plantations gather the world's most expensive coffee by following a gourmet marsupial who consumes only the choicest coffee beans. By picking through what he excretes, they obtain the world's most expensive coffee - Kopi Luwak, which sells for more than $100 per pound.

In the early 1900s, coffee was often delivered door-to-door in the United States, by horse-pulled wagon.

Caffeine is on the International Olympic Committee list of prohibited substances. Athletes who test positive for more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of urine may be banned from the Olympic Games. This level may be reached after drinking about five cups of coffee.

A scientific report from the University of California found that the steam rising from a cup of coffee contains the same amounts of antioxidants as three oranges. The antioxidants are heterocyclic compounds that prevent cancer and heart disease.

Large doses of coffee can be lethal. Ten grams, or 100 cups over four hours, can kill the average human.

Dandelion root can be roasted and ground as a coffee substitute.