> It keeps the cobblies away.
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://www.livescience.com/history/080519-hs-coffee.html
> How Coffee Changed the World
> By Heather Whipps, LiveScience's History Columnist
> posted: 19 May 2008 12:35 pm ET
>
> Heather Whipps is a freelance writer with an anthropology degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
>
> Red ripe coffee beans are sorted on a coffee plantation near Poas, Costa Rica in this file photo. (AP Photo/Kent Gilbert) Each
> Monday, this column turns a page in history to explore the discoveries, events and people that continue to affect the history being
> made today.
>
> Did you hear the one about the goat, the monk and the Indian pilgrim?
>
> There's no crass punchline to this story, just a punchy drink that is the world's second most important commodity, after oil.
>
> Discovered more than 1,000 years ago by goats roaming the hills of Ethiopia, coffee today employs 500 million people, from the
> workers toiling in the fields of Kenya to the teenage baristas at your neighborhood Starbucks.
>
> In a world of more than 6 billion people, enjoying a good cup of joe is one of the few fixtures of everyday life common to cultures
> on every continent.
>
> Buzzed goats make important discovery
>
> It is only fitting that the history of a beverage so associated with good conversation starts with a storybook-like tale. Native
> only to parts of subtropical Africa, the stimulating effects of wild coffee beans are said to have been first discovered in about
> A.D. 800 by an Ethiopian shepherd named Kaldi, whose goats kept him up at nights after feasting on red coffee berries.
>
> The shepherd shared his find with the abbott at a local monastery, where monks first brewed the beans into a hot drink, reveling in
> the way it kept them awake during long hours of prayer.
>
> Romantic exaggeration or not, by A.D. 1000 the bean with a buzz was a favorite among those needing a boost in East Africa as well as
> across the Red Sea in Yemen, where the crop had migrated over with slaves.
>
> If Ethiopia was the birthplace of coffee, Yemen was where it grew up. The brew first took hold among clerics there too, but
> spillover into the secular crowd didn't take long and skyrocketing demand soon led to the world's first cultivated coffee fields
> there in the 1300s.
>
> The entire Arabian peninsula became a hotbed of coffeehouse culture, with cafés – called kaveh kanes – on every corner.
>
> By the 15th-century, Mecca resembled a medieval incarnation of Seattle, men sipping steaming mugs over games of chess and political
> conversations. Coffee houses were such an important place to gather and discuss that they were often called Schools of the Wise.
>
> Coffee had much the same effect in Europe when it was introduced there in the 1600s. Cafés were the center of social life, where
> people with similar interests could gather and talk. The British insurance company, Lloyd's of London, began as a café popular with
> sailors who often discussed insurance matters.
>
> Caffeine becomes a cash crop
>
> Arabia controlled the lucrative coffee industry for several centuries, exporting only roasted, infertile beans to their new trading
> partners in Europe and Asia. Caffeine junkies the world over were hooked, but couldn't grow their own crops or buy beans at
> reasonable prices.
>
> It took one intrepid Mecca pilgrim to break the Arab monopoly, according to legend, by smuggling some intact beans back to his
> native India, initiating an agricultural explosion. The Dutch also managed to get one plant back to Amsterdam and began cultivating
> in their Southeast Asian colonies in the 17th century. Europe now had a new, direct source for its daily coffee fix.
>
> Coffee plants went everywhere that European empires did, taking root in such famous bean-growing regions as Jamaica's Blue
> Mountains, the Kona district of Hawaii, Indonesia's Java Island and the rainforests of Brazil, which remains the world's biggest
> producer.
>
> The coffee industry is the main source of income for 25 million small farmers, it is estimated.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.livescience.com/health/080519-coffee-facts.html
> 10 Things You Need to Know About Coffee
> By LiveScience Staff
> posted: 19 May 2008 12:34 pm ET
>
> Red ripe coffee beans are sorted on a coffee plantation near Poas, Costa Rica in this file photo. (AP Photo/Kent Gilbert) 1.
> Caffeine Can Kill You
> But you'd have to drink 80 to 100 cups in a hurry, health experts say. We advise not trying.
>
> 2. Coffee Can Be Good For You
> A study shows that Americans get most of their antioxidants from their daily fix of java. One to two cups a day appear to be
> beneficial. Or, if you don't like coffee, try black tea, the second most consumed antioxidant source. Bananas, dry beans, and corn
> wrap up the top five.
>
> 3. Caffeine Might Boost Female Sex Drive
> It worked on rats anyway. But researchers say in humans, coffee might enhance the sexual experience only among people who are not
> habitual users.
>
> 4. Caffeine Might Cut Pain
> Moderate doses of caffeine — the equivalent of two cups of coffee— can cut post-gym muscle pain, a small study found. But the
> research was done on people who were not regular coffee drinkers.
>
> 5. Caffeine Can Indeed Keep You Up at Night
> Health experts advise avoiding it for 6 hours before bedtime.
>
> 6. Decaf Coffee Has Caffeine!
> If you drink five to 10 cups of decaffeinated coffee, you could get as much caffeine as from one or two cups of caffeinated coffee,
> a study found.
>
> 7. Decaffeination Uses Chemicals
> Beans are steamed, so that dissolved caffeine rises to the surface, where it is washed off using an organic solvent called methylene
> chloride.
>
> 8. Caffeine Is Not The Bitter Culprit
> Caffeine is not the main bitter compound in coffee. Rather, the pungent perpetrators are antioxidants.
>
> 9. Great Coffee Depends on Roasting and Brewing
> When it comes to great flavor, coffee chemistry boils down to roasting and brewing. During roasting, oil locked inside the beans
> begins to emerge at around 400 degrees. The more oil, the stronger the flavor. Caffeine content goes up as the water spends more
> time in contact with the grounds, so regular coffee often has more of it than espresso or cappuccino. Darker roasts also yield more
> caffeine.
>
> 10. Coffee Was Discovered by Goats
> A millennium ago on a mountainside in Africa, a herd of goats kept a shepherd up at night after feasting on red coffee berries. The
> shepherd took his animals' discovery to some monks, and very long prayer sessions ensued. It's a good story, anyway.
>
> --
> Frederick Martin McNeill
> Poway, California, United States of America
> mmcne...@fuzzysys.com
> w00t *********************************
> "Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is
> like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'."
> ******************************************