Retail espresso vendors report an increase in decaffeinated sales in the month of January due to New Year’s resolutions to decrease caffeine intake. Of course, it doesn’t last long.
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The famous Lloyd’s of London insurance company started out as a coffee house which catered primarily to seafarers and merchants. In this coffee house, Edward Lloyd used to prepare "ship’s lists" for underwriters who met there to have coffee and offer insurance to the seafarers.
Another famous establishment which surprisingly started as a London coffee house was The Stock Exchange.
By 1700 there were over two thousand coffee houses in London, and they came to be known as “penny universities” because that was the price of a cup of coffee, and while drinking that coffee you could sit and listen to amazing and enlightening conversations.
- Lifted from Uncommon Grounds By Mark Pendergrast
(as well as the Lloyd’s of London website)
"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!"
"Oh, Daddy, don’t be such a drag," a modern librettist translates the cantata. "If I don’t get my coffee fix three times a day, I’ll die!"
- Lifted from Uncommon Grounds By Mark Pendergrast
I thought I’d share an interesting article from the health section of the New York Times…
Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions
As with any product used to excess, consumers often wonder about the health consequences of caffeine.
Finland has the highest coffee consumption per capita in the world.
In ancient Turkey, coffee was so important to society that the lack of sufficient coffee provided legal grounds for a woman to divorce her husband.
The coffee must flow!
Before coffee was coffee, it was a tea.
When first discovered, the ancient Ethiopians boiled the leaves and berries of the coffee plant to make a tea.
They also used the berries to make a wine.
It wasn’t until the 16th century that someone figured out how to make the infusion from the roasted beans that we know today as coffee.
Generally speaking, the people who harvest the coffee beans in the various nations where it’s grown, make barely enough money with a day’s labor to buy one cup of coffee in the USA.
On the upside, though, they get all their coffee for free. Now that’s what I call a perk!
(No pun intended.)
Coffee is the second most valuable export commodity in the world, right behind oil.
Legal commodity, that is.
Look! It’s Jerry’s Books!
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