Coffee
Coffee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the beverage, which comes in many forms. For the seed from which it is made, see Coffee bean. For other uses, see Coffee (disambiguation).
A cup of black coffee
| |
| Type | Hot or cold (usually hot) |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | Ethiopia |
| Introduced | Approx. 15th century (beverage) |
| Color | Dark brown, beige, black, light brown, white |
Coffee is a brewed beverage prepared from the roasted seeds of several species of an evergreen shrub of the genus Coffea. The two most common sources of coffee beans are the highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the "robusta" form of the hardierCoffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), but has a more bitter taste. Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, Maldives, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee "berries" are picked, processed, and dried to yield the seeds inside. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee.
Coffee is slightly acidic (pH 5.0–5.1[1]) and can have a stimulating effect on humans because of its caffeine content. It is one of the most consumed drinks in the world.[2] It can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways. Many studies have examined the health effects of coffee, and whether the overall effects of coffee consumption are positive or negative has been widely disputed.[3] The majority of recent research suggests that moderate coffee consumption is benign or mildly beneficial in healthy adults. However, coffee can worsen the symptoms of some conditions, such as anxiety, largely due to the caffeine and diterpenes it contains.
Coffee cultivation first took place in southern Arabia;[4] the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufishrines of Yemen.[4] In East Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in native religious ceremonies that were in competition with the Christian Church. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its secular consumption until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia.[5] The beverage was also banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons[6] and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe.
An important export commodity, coffee was the top agricultural export for twelve countries in 2004,[7] and it was the world's seventh-largest legal agricultural export by value in 2005.[8] Green (unroasted) coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world.[9] Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Consequently, organic coffee is an expanding market.
Contents
[hide]Etymology
The first reference to "coffee" in the English language is in the form chaoua, dated to 1598. In English and other European languages, "coffee" descends from the Italian word: caffè. In turn, caffè derives from the Ottoman Turkish word for coffee: kahve, which is itself derived from the Arabic: قهوة, qahwah. Arab lexicographers maintain that qahwah originally referred to a type of wine, and gave itsetymology, in turn, to the verb قها qahā, signifying "to have no appetite",[10][11] since this beverage was thought to dull one's hunger.
Several alternative etymologies exist that hold that the Arab form may disguise a loanword from an Ethiopian or African source, suggesting Kaffa, the highland in southwestern Ethiopia as one, since the plant is indigenous to that area.[12]
History
Main article: History of coffee
Legendary accounts
According to legend, ancestors of today's Oromo people were believed to have been the first to recognize the energizing effect of the coffee plant,[4] though no direct evidence has been found indicating where in Africa coffee grew or who among the native populations might have used it as a stimulant or even known about it, earlier than the 17th century.[4] The story ofKaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherder who supposedly discovered coffee when his goats behaved strangely after eating from a coffee plant, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably apocryphal.[4] The original domesticated coffee plant is said to have been from Harar.[13]
Other accounts attribute the discovery of coffee to Sheik Omar. According to the ancient chronicle (preserved in the Abd-Al-Kadir manuscript), Omar, who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer, was once exiled from Mocha, Yemen to a desert cave near Ousab. Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubbery, but found them to be bitter. He tried roasting the seeds to improve the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften the seed, which resulted in a fragrant brown liquid. Upon drinking the liquid Omar was revitalized and sustained for days. As stories of this "miracle drug" reached Mocha, Omar was asked to return and was made a saint.[14] From Ethiopia, the beverage was introduced into the Arab world through Egypt and Yemen.[15]
Historical transmission
The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in theSufi monasteries around Mokha in Yemen.[4] It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is now prepared. By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. Coffee seeds were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the seed. The first coffee smuggled out of the Middle East was by Sufi Baba Budan from Yemen to India in 1670. Before then, all exported coffee was boiled or otherwise sterilised. Portraits of Baba Budan depict him as having smuggled seven coffee seeds by strapping them to his chest. The first plants grown from these smuggled seeds were planted in Mysore.[16] Coffee then spread to Italy, and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.[17]
In 1583, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, gave this description of coffee after returning from a ten-year trip to the Near East:
A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water and the fruit from a bush called bunnu.—Léonard Rauwolf, Reise in die Morgenländer (in German)
From the Middle East, coffee spread to Italy. The thriving trade between Venice and North Africa,Egypt, and the Middle East brought many goods, including coffee, to the Venetian port. From Venice, it was introduced to the rest of Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was deemed a Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink." The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645.[17]
The Dutch East India Company was the first to import coffee on a large scale.[18] The Dutch later grew the crop in Java and Ceylon.[19] The first exports of Indonesian coffee from Java to the Netherlands occurred in 1711.[20]
Through the efforts of the British East India Company, coffee became popular in England as well. Oxford's Queen's Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, is still in existence today. Coffee was introduced in France in 1657, and in Austria and Poland after the 1683 Battle of Vienna, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks.[21]
When coffee reached North America during the Colonial period, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe as alcoholic beverages remained more popular. During the Revolutionary War, the demand for coffee increased so much[22] that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was also due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants,[23] and a general resolution among many Americans to avoid drinking it due to the Boston Tea Party.[24]
After the War of 1812, during which Britain temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans' taste for coffee grew. Coffee consumption declined in England, giving way to tea during the 18th century. The latter beverage was simpler to make, and had become cheaper with the British conquest of India and the tea industry there.[25] During the Age of Sail,seamen aboard ships of the British Royal Navy made substitute coffee by dissolving burnt bread in hot water.[26]
The Frenchman Gabriel de Clieu brought a coffee plant to the French territory of Martiniquein the Caribbean, from which much of the world's cultivated arabica coffee is descended. Coffee thrived in the climate and was conveyed across the Americas.[27] The territory of Santo Domingo (now Haiti) saw coffee cultivated from 1734, and by 1788 it supplied half the world's coffee.[28] The conditions that the slaves worked in on coffee plantations were a factor in the soon to follow Haitian Revolution. The coffee industry never fully recovered there.[29]
Meanwhile, coffee had been introduced to Brazil in 1727, although its cultivation did not gather momentum until independence in 1822.[30] After this time, massive tracts of rainforest were cleared first from the vicinity of Rio and later São Paulo for coffee plantations.[31] Cultivation was taken up by many countries in Central America in the latter half of the 19th century, and almost all involved the large-scale displacement and exploitation of the indigenous people. Harsh conditions led to many uprisings, coups and bloody suppression of peasants.[32] The notable exception was Costa Rica, where lack of ready labor prevented the formation of large farms. Smaller farms and more egalitarian conditions ameliorated unrest over the 19th and 20th centuries.[33]
Coffee has become a vital cash crop for many developing countries. Over one hundred million people in developing countries have become dependent on coffee as their primary source of income. It has become the primary export and backbone for African countries like Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia,[34] as well as many Central American countries.
Biology
Main articles: Coffea and coffee varieties
Several species of shrub of the genus Coffea produce the berries from which coffee is extracted. The two main species commercially cultivated are Coffea canephora (predominantly a form known as 'robusta') andC. arabica.[35] C. arabica, the most highly regarded species, is native to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia and the Boma Plateau in southeastern Sudan and possibly Mount Marsabit in northern Kenya.[36]C. canephora is native to western and central Subsaharan Africa, from Guinea to the Uganda and southern Sudan.[37] Less popular species are C. liberica, C. stenophylla, C. mauritiana, and C. racemosa.
All coffee plants are classified in the large family Rubiaceae. They are evergreen shrubs or small trees that may grow 5 m (15 ft) tall when unpruned. The leaves are dark green and glossy, usually 10–15 cm (4–6 in) long and 6 cm (2.4 in) wide. The flowers are axillary, and clusters of fragrant white flowers bloom simultaneously and are followed by oval berries of about 1.5 cm (0.6 in).[38] Green when immature, they ripen to yellow, then crimson, before turning black on drying. Each berry usually contains two seeds, but 5–10% of the berries[39] have only one; these are called peaberries.[40] Arabica berries ripen in six to eight months, while robusta take nine to eleven months.[41]
Coffea arabica is predominantly self-pollinating, and as a result the seedlings are generally uniform and vary little from their parents. In contrast, Coffea canephora, and C. liberica are self-incompatible and require outcrossing. This means that useful forms and hybrids must be propagated vegetatively.[42] Cuttings, grafting, and budding are the usual methods of vegetative propagation.[43] On the other hand, there is great scope for experimentation in search of potential new strains.[42]
Cultivation
Further information: List of countries by coffee production
The traditional method of planting coffee is to place 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season. This method loses about 50% of the seeds' potential, as about half fail to sprout. A more effective method of growing coffee, used in Brazil, is to raise seedlings in nurseries that are then planted outside at six to twelve months. Coffee is often intercroppedwith food crops, such as corn, beans, or rice during the first few years of cultivation as farmers become familiar with its requirements.[38]
Of the two main species grown, arabica coffee (from C. arabica) is generally more highly regarded than robusta coffee (from C. canephora); robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor but better body than arabica. For these reasons, about three-quarters of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica.[35] Robusta strains also contain about 40–50% more caffeine than arabica.[44] For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robusta seeds are used in traditional Italian espresso blends to provide a full-bodied taste and a better foam head (known ascrema).[45]
However, Coffea canephora is less susceptible to disease than C. arabica and can be cultivated in lower altitudes and warmer climates where C. arabica will not thrive.[46] The robusta strain was first collected in 1890 from the Lomani River, a tributary of the Congo River, and was conveyed from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) to Brussels to Java around 1900. From Java, further breeding resulted in the establishment of robusta plantations in many countries.[47] In particular, the spread of the devastating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), to whichC. arabica is vulnerable, hastened the uptake of the resistant robusta. Coffee leaf rust is found in virtually all countries that produce coffee.[48]
Over 900 species of insect have been recorded as pests of coffee crops worldwide. Of these, over a third are beetles, and over a quarter are bugs. Some 20 species of nematodes, 9 species of mites, several snails and slugs also attack the crop. Birds and rodents sometimes eat coffee berries but their impact is minor compared to invertebrates.[49] In general, arabica is the more sensitive species to invertebrate predation overall. Each part of the coffee plant is assailed by different animals.Nematodes attack the roots, and borer beetles burrow into stems and woody material,[50] the foliage is attacked by over 100 species of larvae (caterpillars) of butterflies and moths.[51]
Mass spraying of insecticides has often proven disastrous, as the predators of the pests are more sensitive than the pests themselves.[52] Instead, integrated pest management has developed, using techniques such as targeted treatment of pest outbreaks, and managing crop environment away from conditions favouring pests. Branches infested with scale are often cut and left on the ground, which promotes scale parasites to not only attack the scale on the fallen branches but in the plant as well.[53]
The 2-mm-long coffee berry borer beetle is the most damaging insect pest to the world’s coffee industry, destroying up to 50 percent or more of the coffee berries on plantations in most coffee-producing countries. The adult female beetle nibbles a single tiny hole in a coffee berry and lays 35 to 50 eggs. Inside, the offspring grow, mate, and then emerge from the commercially ruined berry to disperse, repeating the cycle. Pesticides are mostly ineffective because the beetle juveniles are protected inside the berry nurseries, but they are vulnerable to predation by birds when they emerge. When groves of trees are nearby, the American Yellow Warbler, Rufous-capped Warbler and other insectivorous birds have been shown to reduce by 50 percent the number of coffee berry borer beetles in Costa Rica coffee plantations.[54]
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