Scientists are now racing to save coffee before it is too late. At the level of basic science, in 2014 the coffee
genome was published; one of the findings was that the genes that coffee uses to produce caffeine are not the same as the genes that cacao uses (e-mail of 16 May 2015). At the level of applied science, in
2008-2009 scientists named seven newly discovered coffee species from the mountains of northern Madagascar and two from the Cameroon. One of these new species has no caffeine, so this holds out the possibility of breeding a coffee bean that is caffeine-free.
Coffee evolved in the highlands of Ethiopia, and this remains the center of world coffee diversity (though Madagascar also displays considerable diversity). In some Ethiopian forests, there are 8,000 coffee plants per acre. One obstacle to taking advantage of coffee's genetic diversity contained within these forests is that they are disappearing. More than 80 percent of the Ethiopian forests had been cleared by the beginning of the twenty-first century, and land conversion continues [Rosner, p. 72]. Another problem is that Ethiopia feels that it has been cheated by Western companies that have exploited its coffee resources, and it no longer allows foreigners to mine the genetic diversity of Ethiopian coffee [Rosner, p. 73]. It could be that genes that would improve yield, protect against coffee rust, or provide other advantages are going undiscovered.
The question is whether coffee plants, weakened by increasing temperatures, will be able to withstand new diseases that crop up. The current narrow genetic base exposes the crop to high risks and can be compared to a stock portfolio that only has a few stocks [Rosner, p. 73].
Coffeehouses
Coffeehouses allowed people to come together, drink coffee, and talk. As one commentator put it, "Coffeehouses have provided places to plan revolution, write poetry, do business, and meet friends [Pendergrast, p. xvii]. Another point of view is expressed by Viennese wag Alfred Poger, "The coffeehouse is the ideal place for people who want to be alone but need company for it."
This section covers coffeehouses in different eras and countries, where the theme is the impetus that coffeehouses gave to independent thought and free discussion. As Ukers [pp. 18-19] puts it, "One of the most interesting facts in the history of the coffee drink is wherever it has been introduced it has spelled revolution. It has been the world's most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants and to foes of liberty of thought and action." As Weinberg and Bealer [p. 319] observe, "In coffeehouses, men met and plotted the American, French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions." And I grew up thinking that coffee was a drink for conformist housewives.
Muslim World
When coffee was first introduced into Arabia, no one had either the expertise or the equipment to brew it at home, so it was natural that places of business arose to serve it [Hattox, p. 79]. This led to the creation of the coffeehouse, which is an institution of Arab origin [Hattox p. 76]. By the time that brewing coffee at home became commonplace, the coffeehouse was firmly established as the preferred place to drink coffee [Hattox, p. 73].
In Muslim cities circa 1500 there were virtually no restaurants, and all food was taken at the home. Moreover, there was almost no place to go at night except the mosque [Hattox, p. 125], and then only on special days, and at the mosque the range of topics that could in good taste be discussed was narrow [Hattox, p. 124]. Finally, Muhammad spoke approvingly of taciturnity [Hattox, p. 116]. In the 16th century coffeehouses appeared, and men had a place to go at night and get out of the house [Hattox, p. 89-90]. They could discuss the widest range of topics, including social and political issues, and the coffee brought on loquacity [Hattox, p. 115]. In short, the coffeehouse roused the ire of traditionalists because it caused so many breaks with traditional ways, and for this reason the coffeehouse came under numerous attacks through the years. For example, in 1511 the governor of Mecca got the idea that coffee drinking was leading to extravagant behavior prohibited by religion. In particular, "...those who frequented the coffeehouses, precipitated social, political, and religious arguments; and these frequently developed into disturbances" [Ukers, p. 17]. (A long series of such attacks based on ignorance and bias can be found in Hattox and Ukers, but I won't go into them since I am not the Human Frailty Explorer.)
Additional pretexts for attacking coffeehouses were that they promoted an atmosphere of indolence [Hattox, p. 120], drew patrons away from the mosques so that the coffeehouses were full while the mosques were empty [Hattox, p . 122, Ukers, pp. 19, 20], promoted gambling [Hattox, pp. 103-104], and provided music that created an atmosphere of revelry and debauchery [Hattox, pp. 106-108]. In short, coffeehouses were a "tavern without wine" that promoted unseemly behavior [Hattox, p. 79]. As one sixteenth century Muslim writer on elegant manners said of the boisterousness and merry wit promoted by the coffeehouse, "...clowning debases a man, lowers his social standing, deprives him of his virtue, and corrupts his nobility" [Hattox, p. 116]. Nevertheless, coffeehouses flourished because they were patronized by leading citizens who could laugh off these attacks [Hattox, p. 93].
Attacks on coffee for religious, social, and medical reasons could be shrugged off, but political reasons were another story. Coffeehouses came to be seen as hotbeds of sedition since they afforded opportunities for social intercourse and free discussion, and this was enough to periodically draw the ire of both religious and political authorities [Ukers, pp. 19, 20]. That is, even though on the surface the drinking of coffee was the main activity at coffeehouses, the real activity was talking [Hattox, p. 100]. In particular, public affairs occasioned much comment and criticism [Hattox. p. 101]. As Hattox [p. 102] relates:
Ottoman Sultan Murat IV, having witnessed a coup in 1622, protected his regime against coffeehouse sedition by by banning coffeehouses in Istanbul in 1633, and they stayed closed until the last quarter of the century [Hattox, p. 102].
England
Coffeehouses came into being in England shortly before Charles II took the throne in 1660, and their role as debating places flourished under this weak government [Ukers, p. 59]. The popularity of the coffeehouse seems to have come from its opportunity for a free exchange of ideas away from intoxicating beverages, and a good bit of opposition to coffeehouses arose from tavern-keepers who were losing business [Ukers, p. 64]. Coffee drinkers fired back by comparing the fogginess induced by intoxicating drink to the good fortune that had "...sent among us this All-healing-Berry/At once to make us both Sober and Merry" [Ukers, pp. 71-72].
In 1675 King Charles II of England, upon deciding that coffeehouses were "seminaries of sedition" [Ukers, p. 72], issued a Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses because they were the
"...resort of Idle and disaffected persons ...[who] mis-spend much of their time, which ... would be employed in and about their Lawful Calling and affairs;... but also ... divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the defamation of his Majestie's Government and the to Disturbance of the Peace and quiet of the Realm" [Ukers, p. 73].
Eleven days later this proclamation was canceled, in part because the King was informed that this measure would greatly decrease his tax revenue [Ukers, p. 73].
Coffeehouses were celebrated in the poem "News from the Coffee-House," a broadside published in in 1667 [Ukers, p. 69, Weinberg and Bealer, p. 323]:
You that delight in wit and Mirth
And long to hear such News
As comes from all Parts of the Earth
Dutch, Danes, and Turks, and Jews,
I'le send yee to a Rendezvous
Where it is smoaking new;
Go hear it at a Coffee-house,
It cannot but be true.
The London coffeehouses of the 17th century were called penny universities since a patron would pay his penny upon entering and then gain access to all of the ongoing conversations. As one versifier put it [Ukers, p. 73, Weinberg and Bealer, p. 324]:
So great a Universitie
I think there ne're was any;
In which you may a Schoolar be
For spending of a Penny.
The coffeehouse became the meeting place for all classes [Ukers, p. 28, 60]. This highly unusual opportunity for the classes (but not women) to mingle led to the fear of the proprietors that the low-born would annoy the gentry, so coffeehouses had rules to govern behavior, which tried to limit swearing, gambling, and fighting [Ukers, p. 60-61]. In this illiterate age, a coffeehouse was typically signified by a suitable sign such as a sultan [Ukers, p. 66].
It is believed that the custom of tipping started at coffeehouses in this era, and the word was a acronym of "To Insure Promptness" [Ukers, p. 74].
A typical coffeehouse was a big room with the layout favored by the wits and the literati being tables devoted to various topics. A couplet from an 1681 tragedy goes [Ukers, p. 61]:
In a coffeehouse just now among the rabble
I bluntly asked, which is the treason table?
Ukers [p. 74] states the importance of the coffeehouses as the English grew increasingly disenchanted with Charles II and then James II:
In that critical time in English history, when the people, tired of the misgovernment of the later Stuarts, were most in need of a forum where questions of great moment could be discussed, the coffee house became a sanctuary. Here matters of supreme political import were threshed out and decided for the good of Englishmen for all time.
Coffeehouses appealed not only to the politically aware but also to literary men. Macaulay describes Will's Coffeehouse circa 1685 [quoted in Ukers, p. 77]:
The great press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sate.... To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy, or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast.
Another literary accomplishment of coffeehouses is provider by Ukers [p. 80]:
The Tatler and the Spectator were born in the coffee house, and probably English prose would never have received the impetus given it by the essays of Addison and Steele had it not been for coffee house associations.
In addition, Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock was inspired by coffeehouse conversation.
The coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd in 1688 was patronized by seafarers and merchants. He started performing services for this clientele, and his coffeehouse evolved into Lloyds of London [Ukers, pp. 85-86].
Through the 17th century coffee, tea, and chocolate competed as stimulants. Coffee emerged victorious since it was by far the cheapest of the three and provided the most stimulation for the least outlay [Coe and Coe, p. 168]. This is why coffee houses flourished while chocolate shops remained the retreat of the elite (see the e-mail of 16 May 2015).
Just as the coffeehouse rose in the 17th century, it declined in the 18th. Partly, clubs evolved to take away the well-to-do. Partly customers came to read papers rather than talk. In large part, however, the home came to be the place where coffee was drunk [Ukers, p. 75]. In addition, tea decreased in price and increased in popularity, and pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall Gardens drained customers away from the coffeehouses [Ukers, 81-82, Macfarlane and Macfarlane, p. 80]. Those establishments that remained regressed to taverns and chop houses.
France
The first coffeehouse, the Café de Procope, opened in Paris in 1689, across the street from the Comedie Francais. It became a literary salon, and it was frequented in the 18th century by Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and Benjamin Franklin. Following the death of Louis XIV in 1715, Michelet, the historian, says, "Paris became one vast café. Conversation in France was at its zenith" [Ukers, p. 98]. During the French Revolution Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were to be found there furiously debating the issues of the day while Napoleon played chess [Ukers, p. 94]. Danton, while drinking several cups of coffee before mounting the platform, declared, "...the horse must have its oats" [Ukers, p. 98]. At the Café de la Régence, Diderot worked on the Encyclopedie [Ukers, p. 98].
Different cafés appealed to different groups. The politician
Salvandy, born in 1795, described the cafés patronized by politicians in the following terms:
These were senates in miniature; here mighty political questions were discussed; here peace and war were decided on; here generals were brought to the bar of justice ... distinguished orators were victoriously refuted, ministers heckled upon their ignorance, their incapacity, their corruption. The café is in reality a French institution; in them we find all the agitations and movements of men, the like of which is unknown in the English tavern. No government can go against the sentiment of the cafés. The Revolution took place because they were for the revolution [Ukers, p. 100, ellipsis in original].
As the 18th century wore on, the coffeehouses gradually added beverages and food, and they came to take on the character of restaurants, and the era of the coffeehouse proper came to an end in France [Ukers, p. 102].
Holland
Coffeehouses spread rapidly in Holland in the mid-17th century, and, as one would expect, in Holland there was never any opposition to coffee, neither political, religious, nor medical [Ukers, p. 44].
Boston
The first coffeehouse in what was to become the United States opened in Boston in 1670; this was apparently also the first written mention of coffee in Massachusetts. This establishment was licensed to sell both coffee and chocolate. In fact, the evolution of the coffeehouse in North America was different than in Europe in that from the beginning it broadened its offering to include not only coffee but also chocolate, tea, and alcoholic beverages. Coffee did not initially gain nearly the popularity in North America that it did in Europe [Ukers, p. 107].
The most famous coffeehouse/tavern in Boston was the Green Dragon, where Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and James Otis plotted rebellion [Ukers, p. 110]. Sam Adams made the Green Dragon the "headquarters of the revolution" [Miller, p. 40], the Boston Tea Party was
plannedthere, and it was the starting point for Paul Revere's ride. Another famous coffeehouse/tavern in Boston was the Bunch of Grapes, where there was a celebration in 1776 when a delegate from Philadelphia read the Declaration of Independence to the assembled crowd. One of the celebrants nearly burned down the Bunch of Grapes when he built a bonfire too close to it [Ukers, p. 111].
Summary
To summarize, the coffeehouses, in whatever country they were located, became notorious as a way for people of like minds, usually seditious, to gather, swap ideas, and hatch plots. In short, the coffeehouse was the Internet of its era.
Can you imagine malcontents plotting rebellion at the ice cream parlor?
My Reminiscence
Classic coffeehouses still existed when I moved to Cambridge in 1970. The Idler in Harvard Square was a tiny little place with the tables so close together that you couldn't walk between them if you had your winter coat on, and the conversations were carried on with such vehemence that the noise was overwhelming. Steve Agresta and I would go to the Idler and eavesdrop on the disputations of overheated intellectuals. Coffeehouses like the Idler are long gone. Now, in a Starbucks, each customer is absorbed in his phone or laptop, and the coffeehouse is no longer a hotbed of sedition.
Suppression of Coffee
As we just saw, suppression of coffee often arises from opposition to coffeehouses rather than opposition to coffee. Putting political reasons aside, now we turn to suppression not of coffeehouses but of coffee for other reasons: religious, medical, economic, and nutritional.
Religious Opposition
In 1570 Muslim preachers in Istanbul argued, "Mohammed had not even known of coffee, so he could not have used the drink, and, therefore, it must be an abomination for his followers to do so" [Ukers, p. 20]. Coffee was banned, but, as in the U.S. during prohibition, widespread consumption continued. Over the next decade the prohibition gradually became a dead letter.
Shortly after coffee arrived in Italy, it came under attack by priests, who
...claimed that the Evil One, having forbidden his followers, the infidel Muslims, the use of wine--no doubt because it was sanctified by Christ and used in the Holy Communion--had given them as a substitute this hellish black brew of his which they called coffee. for Christians to drink it was to risk falling into a trap set by Satan for their souls [Ukers, p. 26].
The pope dismissed their claims, and coffee thereafter faced no religious suppression from the Catholics.
Economic and Nutritional Opposition
In 1777 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia,
banned coffee drinking by all but the elite because of its ruinous cost. He tried to steer people to the much cheaper beer. Here is a portion of the proclamation of 13 Sep 1777:
It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible, this must be prevented. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his ancestors, and his officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer; and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be depended upon to endure hardship or to beat his enemies in case of the occurrence of another war [Ukers, p. 46].
Again, intransigent coffee drinkers ignored the edict and weathered the storm. (Keep in mind that wheat would not grow well in the German climate, but barley would. Unlike wheat, barley does not store well. Making barley into beer is a way to store its nutritional value, so this is why Germans made so much beer and, ultimately, why Germans drink so much beer today. This comes from my fund of general knowledge, which means that I can't find the reference.)
Boom and Bust Nature of Coffee
Repeated boom-and-bust cycles in the coffee market have been observed over the last couple of hundred years. This pattern is not an accident but is an implication of the biology of coffee in that it takes perhaps five or six years for a newly planted arabica coffee tree to come into production, and it is a perennial that will keep producing for maybe 30 years. A cycle proceeds in something like the following way, where we break into the cycle when there is a boom.
- In a boom, prices are high, i.e., demand exceeds supply.
- In response to the high prices, growers plant more coffee trees.
- Since it takes five or six years before new arabica trees come into production, the high prices continue and encourage even more planting.
- Eventually the newly planted trees come into production, and supply soars.
- Prices fall precipitately since supply now exceeds demand, and a bust occurs
- In response to the low prices, supply is decreased over time as aged coffee trees naturally go out of production, as trees are ripped up and replace by other crops, or as plantations are abandoned.
- Supply falls until supply and demand are in balance.
- Eventually something happens, e.g., disease, war, or political instability, and production plummets. Prices increase. Return to step 1, and the cycle continues.
You can read about various phases of this cycle in Pendergrast [pp. 20 (bust of 1823), 61 (explanation of the cycle), 62 (bust of 1878), 74 (bust of 1896), 76 (bust of 1902, explanation), 88 (boom of 1912), 164-74 (bust of the 1930s), 216-17 and 227 (boom of 1949-54), 235 (bust of 1955), 289-90 (bust of 1975-76), 327-30 (bust of 1986-1990), 349-51 (bust of 1999-2004)].
Environmental Considerations
Traditionally, coffee is grown in shade under trees. Starting in the 1970s, however, farmers started growing coffee
unshaded in full sun since it had been found that this increases yields and quickens the ripening of the berries. This practice has drawn sharp criticism since it requires increased use of pesticides and fertilizer; it also leads to the loss of biodiversity and to soil and water degradation. In particular, it has been found that the shade trees in coffee plantations can serve as critical overwintering grounds for migratory birds; removal of these trees could greatly reduce bird populations. There are competing certification schemes to inform coffee-purchasing birders which coffees are shade-grown; for example, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center awards the "Bird Friendly" designation to coffees that meet its criteria [Pendergrast, pp. 368-71].
The Coffee and Conservation
website in a post of 28 April 2015 discusses the Rainforest Alliance's proposed revision of the international standards on shade requirements for shade-tolerant tropical crops such as coffee. Recall from the e-mail on chocolate (16 May 2015) that the current thinking is that growing crops under the canopy allows a plantation to provide as least some ecosystem services. The author of this post is disappointed to find that the shade requirements for coffee have been relaxed, i.e., eliminated, due to pressure from industry. Below are pictures of shade-grown coffee; contrast these with the picture of the Brazilian coffee plantation at the beginning of this e-mail.
Global warming is expected to affect coffee in at least three ways. First, as it warms, the environment becomes more favorable to the coffee rust disease [Rosner, p. 71]. Second, much of the best coffee is grown on mountainsides, which means that as it warms, cultivation will have to move up the mountains, which means there will be less area for growing coffee; this movement is already occurring, and changes in the seasons and the pattern of rainfall is harming cultivation [Pendergrast, p. 363]. Third, since many coffee-growing areas are in areas vulnerable to hurricanes and other major storms, e.g., Central America and Madagascar, more disruptions by natural disasters are expected.
The Ecology of Coffee, Caffeine, and its Effect on Humans and Insects
In almost every source one can find a statement something like the following: "Most caffeine advocates and many caffeine opponents agree that caffeine helps to keep a person awake, increases energy, improves mood, and enhances the ability to think clearly" [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 223]. How did the coffee plant come to evolve this chemical, which has such an effect on humans? The answer is a repeat of the story that we have seen numerous times in these e-mails (27 Mar, 16 May and 12 Jun 2015). Coffee, as a tropical plant, has been forced to evolve a defense against the insects and other herbivores that would like to eat it. For this reason, a roasted coffee bean contains some 2,000 chemicals, one of which is caffeine, which is a natural pesticide [Pendergrast, pp. 375, 380].
Caffeine can kill bacteria and fungi. Moreover, it can interfere with growth, development, and reproductive capacity of insects; experiments show that mosquito larvae dosed with caffeine become confused and cannot swim to the surface to breathe. In addition, caffeine has a synergistic effect with other insecticides in that it can increase their effectiveness by a factor of ten. Finally, caffeine deposited in the soil by dropped leaves accumulates and discourages other plants that compete with coffee. The irony is that eventually the coffee plant itself succumbs to the caffeine it has placed in the soil around it; this is why a coffee tree only lives about 30 years. (This paragraph is drawn from Weinberg and Bealer, pp. 235-237].)
A typical cup of coffee has about 100 mg of caffeine, though this varies widely due to the size of the cup, method of preparation, type of bean, method of roasting, and amount of coffee used; for a wealth of detail on this topic, see Weinberg and Bealer [pp. 228-30]. For example, a 12.6 ounce cup of Dunkin' Donuts regular coffee delivers a whopping 275 mg of caffeine. Keep in mind that an arabica bean is about 1.1 percent caffeine by weight, and a robusta bean about 2.2 percent; for comparison, a tea leaf is about 3.5 percent and a cacao bean 0.03 percent [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 236]. If you are tracking your caffeine use, be aware that it is almost impossible to guess with any accuracy how much caffeine is in a cup of coffee provided by a restaurant [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 229]. Also, don't forget that soft drinks are spiked with caffeine.
For more than 500 years there have been claims that coffee was unhealthy. I won't try to survey the literature, but my impression is that the current consensus opinion is that under normal circumstances, coffee poses no health problem [Pendergrast, pp. 375-79]. By "normal circumstances" I mean that one drinks a moderate amount of coffee and that one does not have a health condition for which coffee is contraindicated. If one drinks too much coffee, or if one has a condition that is exacerbated by coffee, then, obviously, drinking coffee can lead to bad things, but the same can be said for eating too much chocolate or eating it when you have a condition that chocolate makes worse (for examples of these conditions see the e-mail of 16 May 2015). In short, coffee is no worse than many everyday foods that we eat without a thought about their health implications. As Weinberg and Bealer [p. 320] state after a lengthy survey, "...caffeine appears to be remarkably non-toxic and to have been associated with few, if any, large-scale health problems."
If you quit smoking and keep your caffeine intake constant, the caffeine will have a bigger effect on you since smoking lessens the effect of caffeine [Pendergrast, p. 379n]. Other factors that decrease the effect of caffeine are being Caucasian, a woman, or a child. Factors that increase the effect are using alcohol or oral contraceptives or being Asian, a man, newborn, pregnant, or having liver damage [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 219-23].
Coffee is addictive, but the withdrawal symptoms, e.g., headaches, only last about a week, so it is not considered a serious addiction [Pendergrast, pp. 379-380, Weinberg and Bealer, pp. 303-315].
Don't get the idea that all decaf is the same. Using a six ounce serving as a basis of comparison, Sanka only provides 1.5 mg of caffeine, whereas Starbuck's decaf provides 25 mg [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 229]. There are least three species of Coffea that are caffeine-free, but decaf cannot be made from them since they contain a bitter substance that makes their beans unfit for use [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 245].
The formula for caffeine is
C8H10N4O2 , and its structure is shown below. In 1895 German chemist
Hermann Emil Fischer first synthesized caffeine, and two years later he worked out the structure shown below; this constituted part of the work for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1902. While there are theories about exactly how caffeine achieves its observed effects on humans, the scientific community has not achieved consensus, and the mode of action of caffeine at the molecular level remains an open issue [Weinberg and Bealer, pp. 223-27]. As a
website put it in 2013, "Several cellular actions of caffeine have been observed, but it is not entirely clear how each contributes to its pharmacological profile."
Miscellany
It is
said that goats become excited if they eat coffee beans.
Just as cacao beans were used by the Mayas and Aztecs as currency (16 May 2015), coffee beans were used as currency in the Islamic world [Weinberg and Bealer, pp. 309, 319].
Coffee is the primary source of income of over
100 million people in developing countries.
Since coffee is expensive, the unethical have mixed many adulterants with it over the centuries. One of the most common is the ground-up root of chicory [Ukers, pp. 152-53], which grows on Decatur Street. A drink made with chicory looks like coffee but does not smell of taste like it or offer any caffeine. Also used are roasted date stones (see e-mail of 28 Dec 2014).
When Napoleon instituted his Continental System in 1806 to cut off trade with England, an implication was that the French could no longer get coffee. Making the best of a bad situation, they fell back on
chicory as a substitute. The French developed a taste for this drink and continued to add chicory to their coffee after the coffee trade was restored, and this habit became established in New Orleans [Pendergrast, p. 19]. Below are pictures of the chicory flower seen in this country and the root of the cultivar of chicory that is used to flavor coffee.
A coffeehouse in Europe was called a café since that was the transliteration of the Arabian qahwa, and the term café has ever since been used to denote a place for informal dining and drinking [Ukers, p. 27, Pendergrast, p. 8].
A tea can be made from coffee leaves in the same way as from tea leaves. This coffee tea is preferred by some to coffee [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 245].
The industry's most notable feature of the last 50 years has been the rise of the specialty coffee roasters, starting with Peet's [Pendergrast, pp. 265-67] and now dominated by Starbucks. While the strategies of these specialty roasters have differed somewhat, they all have the same central features.
- Use high quality arabica beans, which come from Ethiopia, the Yemen, Latin America (excluding Brazil), Kenya, Tanzania, and Cameroon [Weinberg and Bealer, p. 241].
- Use great care in roasting. Different roasters have different philosophies of roasting, e.g., West Coast roasters tend to prefer a darker roast.
- Minimize the time between roasting and grinding, and between grinding and brewing. Whenever coffee is stored during the process, protect it with air tightness, one-way valves, and perhaps freezing; this slows or prevents the chemical reactions that degrade the quality of the bean.
- Use great care in brewing.
In short, the specialty coffee makers have no secret except to focus on quality in a commonsense way even if this increases cost. In contrast, it is clear in retrospect that over the decades the big coffee companies, in order to maintain their mass market appeal, have tended to concentrate on cost reduction even if this degraded quality.
In Hawaii, where coffee plantations have been abandoned, coffee has become an
invasive weed.
So that children can help with the harvest, school vacation in Guatemala is scheduled during the coffee harvest [Pendergrast, p. xi].
Arab and Mediterranean people tend to be lactose-intolerant, while northern Europeans tend to be lactose tolerant. This largely explains why the former tend to prefer black coffee and the latter coffee with milk [Pendergrast, p. 10].
In 1732 coffee had created such a stir, both pro and con, in Germany that Bach was inspired to write his Coffee Cantata. Here is a passage in which a daughter begs her unbending father to allow her to drink coffee [Pendergrast, p. 11]:
Dear father, do not be so strict! If I can't have my little demi-tasse of coffee three times a day, I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat! Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee, and if anyone wishes to please me, let him present me with--coffee.!
A modern translator renders the first sentence as: "Oh, Daddy, don't be such a drag" [Pendergrast, p. 11n].
Coffee rust, the potentially disastrous fungal disease that destroyed the coffee industry in Ceylon circa 1869, is an ever-present threat today in all countries where coffee is grown. It is kept under control by using proper methods of cultivation, cultivars with at least some resistance, and fungicides [Smith, p. 4]. These methods, however, are not universally successful. In 1970, coffee rust appeared in Brazil, and much of the cultivation was switched to the inferior robusta coffee, which is resistant to coffee rust [Pendergrast, pp. 275-76]. More, recently it ravaged the crop in Central America, and from 2011 to 2012 production fell by 20 percent [Rosner, p. 70]. Coffee rust thrives as temperatures increase [Rosner, p. 71].
Gift Idea
Give to the coffee lover on your gift list for whom you wish to spare no expense a container of
kopi luwak, which is made from coffee beans that have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet (pictures below).
Kopi is Indonesian for coffee, and
luwak for palm civet. The civet eats the fruit for the pulp, and the seeds then pass through the digestive tract. Proponents of this coffee claim that its superiority comes from two factors. First, the skillful civets select the best beans. Second, the digestive juices alter the bean in a favorable way. See the picture below of a Sumatran civet farmer displaying palm civet feces with embedded coffee beans. The discovery that coffee could be made in this manner occurred in the 19th century when the Dutch masters would not let the natives in the Dutch East Indies pick coffee berries for their own use; therefore, the only coffee beans available to the natives were those they found in the droppings of the palm civet. The quality of this coffee was noticed, and it was one of the first boutique coffees. Though this coffee sells for up to $1600 per pound, demand is now so high that
suppliers are having a hard time keeping up. You can even get it in
K cups. Ethical
concerns have been raised about the conditions under which the civets are farmed since they are force-fed. Connoisseurs complain that this ruins the coffee since the force-feeding means that the civets are not free to select the best beans. Moreover, the high price has led to intensive trapping that threatens wild civet populations.
Counterfeiting is rife, so exercise extreme care if you decide to indulge in this coffee. Also, be aware that some squash-parties
claim that this coffee in fact is inferior; perhaps they were taken in by counterfeiters. (As a variation on
kopi luwak, in Thailand coffee beans are passed through
elephants and harvested, and this results in an even more expensive coffee. The interested reader is invited to pursue this topic.)
(While researching this e-mail, I accessed many Internet sites, and this led to my being identified as a lover of
kopi luwak,
and Amazon, sensing an opportunity, sent me an
e-mail that touted fifteen brands. The picture below shows the top three brands in this e-mail. The first brand, Bantai Civet Coffee, costs $180 per pound but only gets 2.5 stars; this average, however, hides the fact that 98 or the 163 reviews only give it one star, which is about the worst I have ever seen a mass of reviewers dump on a product. Even though this coffee claims to be from free-living civets, I sense that Amazon has been duped by counterfeiters. The second brand, Sumatra Lintong Coffee, costs $100 per pound and gets 4 stars (37 reviews); this brand is pictured below, and you can see the civet crouched beside the ripe coffee beans. The third brand costs $520 per pound, i.e. $32.52 per ounce, and gets 4.5 stars (31 reviews). The best buy of the coffees in this e-mail appears to be the
Luwak Star brand (see picture below), which is lower down in this e-mail; it costs $250 per pound, and 19 of its 20 reviews give it five stars. All of these brands claim to be from free-living civets. Coffee drinkers among my readers might want to try these brands and report the results.)
Disclaimer
I don't drink coffee and never have. I can't stand the taste or the smell. I can't even take coffee ice cream or mocha bon bons. In the early 1970s Steve Agresta tried to teach me to drink coffee at the Idler, but I was a poor student.
On the morning of 24 August 1986, after our second Mt. Katahdin backpacking trip, Mike and I were in a restaurant having breakfast. A waitress set a pot of steaming coffee down in front of me. Repulsed by the strong smell, I said, "If it's not cigarettes, it's coffee." Mike replied, "And the question is: What is the greatest boon that God has granted mankind?"
The Last Word
As for why people drink coffee, we find complete agreement between the modern American and the medieval Muslim, writing 400 years apart.
- "People love coffee because of its two-fold effect--the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces."--William H. Ukers [p. xi].
- "It brings to the drinker a sprightliness of spirit and a sense of mental well-being."--Ibn Abd al-Ghaffar [quoted in Hattox, p. 60].
A somewhat different perspective on why people drink coffee is given by Pendergrast [p. 375], when he says, "Caffeine is the most widely taken psychoactive drug on earth, and coffee is its foremost delivery system."
Rick
References
Burnet, Ian, East Indies, Rosenberg, 2013. This book is a quick introduction to the struggles between the Portuguese, English, and Dutch for the trade in the Far East from roughly 1500 to 1850. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe, The True History of Chocolate, Thames and Hudson, third edition, 2013 (first edition published in 1997). For a description of this book, see the e-mail of 16 May 2015.
Hattox, Ralph S. Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East, University of Washington Press, paperback 1996 (first published in hardback in 1985). This is the best source on the early history of coffee and the coffeehouse in the lands of Islam, though Ukers does contain some detail omitted from this book. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Labaree, Benjamin Woods, The Boston Tea Party, Oxford University Press, 1964. I had access to this book in hard copy. It is described more fully in the upcoming e-mail on tea.
Macfarlane, Alan, and Iris Macfarlane, The Empire of Tea, Overlook Press, 2004 (first published in England in 2003). I had access to this book in hard copy. It is described more fully in the upcoming e-mail on tea.
Miller, John C., Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda, Stanford University Press, 1960 (first published in 1936). This e-mail makes only minor use of this book, but it is one of my favorite works on the coming of the American Revolution. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Pendergrast, Mark, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World, Basic Books, revised edition, paperback, 2010 (first edition 1999). This is a well-written, popular survey of coffee that can be considered to be an update to the book by Ukers, which was published in 1922. I used this as the primary source to fill in areas not covered by Ukers. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Rosner, Hillary, "Saving Coffee," Scientific American, October 2014, pp. 68-73. I had access to the original article.
Smith, Reginald F., "A History of Coffee," in M.N. Clifford and K.C. Wilson, eds.,
Botany, Biochemistry, and Production of Beans and Beverage, AVI Publishing, 1985, pp. 1-26. I only had access to the first six pages of this book in the
Amazon preview. I made only limited use of this source since it is mainly a careless rehash of Ukers.
Ukers, William H.,
All About Coffee, The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922. This is the consensus Bible of coffee, and it is frequently referenced in the literature, often without citation. The entire book can be found at
https://ia700408.us.archive.org/7/items/allaboutcoffee01ukergoog/allaboutcoffee01ukergoog.pdf. Because of this book's authoritative nature and because it is available on the Internet, I have used it as the preferred source to quote whenever it is relevant. While some might think that I have placed undue reliance on such an antique work, my view is that its quality, especially in its discussion of coffee history, fully justifies the heavy use I have made of it. Coffee-lovers might want to take a look at this impressive, 800+ page work.
Weinberg, Bennett Alan, and Bonnie K. Bealer,
The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, Routledge, 2002. This book is well written and reliable, though a little bit old. I used it as the source of choice for anything that concerned caffeine. The first few pages can be found at
https://books.google.com/books?id=Qyz5CnOaH9oC&pg=PA3&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false. I had access to the entire book in hard copy.
