Good Coffee Doesn't Have To Cost The Earth

Coffee Facts & Trivia

If we’re honest, most of us probably take coffee for granted. We pour out a cup first thing in the morning or when we need a bit of a caffeine boost, but do we ever really give much thought to where our coffee came from, the incredible journey it’s been on before it lands in your mug, or any of the amazing and often mind-boggling coffee-related facts and figures? Probably not – but all that is about to change with our top coffee facts and related trivia!

So grab a mug of your favourite brew and prepare to develop a whole new appreciation for the humble cup of coffee.

• The word ‘coffee’ originates from ‘Qahweh’, which is the Arabic word for wine.
• It’s estimated 4 out 5 Americans start their day with a cup of coffee!
• The only commodity that is traded more than coffee is oil.
• It takes nearly 19,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of coffee beans, which means it takes about 130 litres of water to make your average cup of coffee.
• As much as one-third of the water used everyday in North America is used to brew coffee.
• In reverse order, the top coffee-producing countries in the world are Colombia, Vietnam, and Brazil, which produces about 40% of the worlds coffee beans.
• California is the only state in the US mainland that produces coffee, the only other US state that also produces coffee is Hawaii.
• There are two types of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta, with Robusta beans typically containing about twice as much caffeine as Arabica.
• Coffee is called ‘cup of Joe’ after the former secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniel, who banned the consumption of alcohol, leading to an increase in popularity of coffee amongst sailors, who started to disparagingly refer to it as a ‘cup of Joe’.
• As coffee ‘beans’ are actually the pit of the coffee cherry they’re therefore actually seeds.
• The average American consumes 11 pounds of coffee a year, which is nothing compared the the world’s biggest coffee drinkers, the Finns, with the average Finnish adult consuming 27.5 pounds a year!
• The first webcam was specifically invented so tech-geeks could check if their coffee pot was empty.
• Coffee was the first food to be freeze-dried, creating instant coffee.
• Drinking coffee in the 16th century Ottoman Empire could get you beheaded, as it was banned for its unusual stimulating effects.