Coffee

As of late I've taken to drinking coffee--probably because someone else at work will make a pot and leave it in the back room. I will tell you I don't put sugar in it... but I do put loads of creamer in it! I can't deal with black coffee and the last two brews have been kinda icky, so why have I finished the cup? I don't know, silly me!

• Germany is the world's second largest consumer of coffee in terms of volume at 16 pounds per person.
• Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.
• An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2,000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
• The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their coffee.
• With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.
• Up until the 1870's most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over a charcoal fire. It wasn't until recent times that batch roasting became popular. (cool)
• Each year some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide. Most of which is hand picked.
• Hard bean means the coffee was grown at an altitude above 5000 feet.
• Most coffee is transported by ships. Currently there are approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the beans each year.
• The popular trend towards flavored coffees originated in the United States during the 1970's.(drat it, that's the kind I like)
• October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.(shouldn't we have one of those?)
• The first coffee tree in the Western Hemisphere was brought from France to the Island of Martinique in the 1720's.