Fancy a cuppa Java?
While tea, cocoa and fizzy drinks are popular, few other beverages approach the popularity of coffee. It is estimated that the people of the world drink more than a thousand million cups of coffee every day.
The story began about nine hundred years ago, somewhere in Ethiopia, when a shepherd noticed that his goats became much livelier when they went to a particular area to feed. A. [ ..... ]
The berries were very strong and bitter, and after a while the people of the Arabian peninsula discovered that the best way to take them was to first cook them slowly over a fire, and then boil them in water. They called this drink 'qahwa'.
B. [ ..... ] From there it spread slowly westward, with the Italians being the first European people to become enthusiastic coffee drinkers.
C. [ ..... ] John Lloyd's coffee house in London soon became a regular meeting place of the city's businessmen, and so many deals were done there that the shop slowly changed from a coffee shop to one of the best known insurance firms in the world. As these European businessmen traded and colonised much of the rest of the world, they took their coffee with them. It arrived in the Americas almost as soon as the first English immigrants did, while the Dutch started to grow the crop commercially in the East Indies.
It arrived in the Americas almost as soon as the first English immigrants did, while the Dutch started to grow the crop commercially in the East Indies. D. [ ..... ]
Brazil also became a major coffee producer, and in fact produced so much coffee that it became necessary to find a way of dealing with the surplus. E. [ ..... ]
However, a true coffee fanatic will avoid instant at almost all costs. For the coffee lover, Italy once again led the world in the early part of last century. Dr Illy developed the first automatic espresso machine for those busy citizens who preferred not to wait while their coffee brewed.
F. [ ..... ]
A form of coffee which has recently become very popular is cappuccino, named after the 'little hood' of milk which of frothy milk which is poured over the espresso. Companies such as the Seattle-based Starbucks coffee house have made this a truly international drink.