COFFEE

Many times in life, the finest luxuries allude us and our bank accounts, but not so with coffee.  It costs only a few cents a cup more, to enjoy the very best coffee money can buy.  Rare , exotic, and wonderful coffees from all around the world are readily available to anyone interested in tasting them.

THE COFFEE CULTURE

It is essential that everyone who prepares espresso, a "Barista", be well informed on the history and types of coffee, as well as what makes Hard Bean Coffee special.  The caffeine and health aspects of coffee are also important.  Presenting a knowledgeable and well informed staff to the public is an important part of our image.

THE ORIGINS OF COFFEE

The first coffee plants were discovered in East Africa, now Kenya and Ethiopia, around 500AD, where they grew wild. They were known to be cultivated in the Middle East (Arabian Peninsula) by the Arabs as a staple of their daily life, and a substitute for alcohol, forbidden by Islamic Law.  The plants were so carefully guarded that it took years for some of the European kings to smuggle some out.  They treated coffee as a royal luxury.     In either case, the history goes back over fifteen hundred years. One story tells of a goat herder who observed his flock eating certain red berries, and then jumping around and acting frisky.  Upon sampling the berries, he too felt exhilarated, and the rest we can imagine.  Another version is that the prophet Mohammed was dying from a bite, when the Archangel Gabriel offered him a drink to help him heal.  As the story goes, he was not only cured, but he could fight forty men at once, and make forty women happy.

Africans ate coffee beans which were crushed and made into balls with fat. Arabs soaked the dried hulls in water.  Turkish coffee was made by boiling the beans in water until a strong brew was achieved.  Coffee spread from Constantinople across Europe about five hundred years ago.

The first "coffeehouse" is reputed to have been in Damascus in 1530.  Coffee started appearing in Europe in the early 1600's, first in Italy, carried by Venetian traders, then France, England, and Germany, and a little later in Austria. Each Country developed a "Coffeehouse" culture.

In Paris coffeehouses became the domain of intellectuals and artists.  It is said that in the late 17th and early 18th centuries that Paris was one vast cafe.  One of the most prominent was the Cafe La Regence which attracted luminaries such as Rousseau, Hugo, and Voltaire, who claimed to drink 50 cups a day. Diderot worked on his "Encyclopedie" in the same Cafe.

In 1684, Halley, of the comet fame, met at a London coffee house after a Royal Society meeting, at which time a scientific wager was made.  This led Halley to involve Isaac Newton, and eventually resulted in the publishing of his "Principia Mathematica", the central tenent of modern science, astronomy, space flight, and other important work.  Also present at the coffee house wager, was Mr. Wren, an architect, who rebuilt London after the great fire.  The coffeehouses became the crossroads of London's intellectual life.  Charging only a penny for admission, they became known as "Penny Universities".

On July 12, 1789, young journalist Camille Desmoulins urged a crowd to take up arms outside Paris Cafe Foy.  Two days later, a mob stormed the Bastille, signaling the start of the French Revolution.  Napoleon once said of his coffee indigestion, " I would rather suffer than be senseless".

Lloyds of London was founded in 1688 in Lloyd's Coffee House, as was the entire English Banking system.

After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, coffee became a symbol of patriotism, and coffee houses became gathering places for people such as Paul Revere, John Adams, George Washington, and others.  The Sons of Liberty regularly met in coffeehouses of New York and Boston.  The Green Dragon of Boston has been dubbed the Headquarters of the American Revolution by Daniel Webster.

In 1793 a small group of auctioneers met in a coffee house in New York City; this eventually became the New York Stock Exchange.

Essayest Alfred Polgar once said that coffeehouses are for "people who want to be alone, but need company for it".

Today, coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world.  Gourmet coffee, in the U.S., is just about a billion and a half dollar business, expected to double by the end of decade.