The Coffee Portal
Coffee | Drinks | Coffeehouses | Companies | Culture | Preparation | Production
Introduction
Coffee is a beverage prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It has the highest sales in the world market for hot drinks.
Seeds of the Coffea plant's fruits are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are roasted and then ground into fine particles that are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, producing a cup of coffee. It is usually served hot, although chilled or iced coffee is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or already-brewed canned coffee). Sugar, sugar substitutes, milk, and cream are often added to mask the bitter taste or enhance the flavor.
Though coffee is now a global commodity, it has a long history tied closely to food traditions around the Red Sea. The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking in the form of the modern beverage appears in modern-day Yemen from the mid-15th century in Sufi shrines, where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a manner similar to current methods. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the Ethiopian Highlands and began cultivation. By the 16th century, the drink had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, later spreading to Europe. In the 20th century, coffee became a global commodity, creating different coffee cultures around the world. (Full article...)
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Maraba coffee (Kinyarwanda: Ikawa ya Maraba; French: Café de Maraba) is grown in the Maraba area of southern Rwanda. Maraba's coffee plants are the Bourbon variety of the Coffea arabica species and are grown on fertile volcanic soils on high-altitude hills. The fruit is handpicked, mostly during the rainy season between March and May, and brought to a washing station in Maraba, where the coffee beans are extracted and dried. At several stages, the beans are sorted according to quality. The farmers receive credits based on the amount and quality of the beans they provide.
The beans are sold to various roasting companies, with the best beans going to Union Coffee Roasters of the United Kingdom, who produce a Fairtrade-certified brand and Community Coffee of the United States. Rwanda Smallholder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO) buys from Maraba and sells to the domestic market. Maraba coffee is also brewed into a beer.
About 500,000 smallholder farmers grow the coffee plants under the Abahuzamugambi cooperative, founded in 1999. Since 2000, the cooperative has been supported by the National University of Rwanda (NUR) and the PEARL. The cooperative has improved coffee quality and penetrated the speciality market. (Full article...)General images -
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the Claudia Quintet was born out of an incident at alt.coffee?
- ... that actor Tatsunari Kimura ate pancakes and drank coffee while talking for eight hours during the filming of the television drama Old-Fashioned Cupcake?
- ... that the Chronicle of the 20th Century was so heavy that it was said to be "the first coffee table book seriously to threaten the well-being of coffee-tables"?
- ... that Justly Watson died suddenly in 1757 from the effects of poison administered in his coffee, it was believed, by a servant?
- ... that the Highfield Cocoa and Coffee House in Sheffield, England, sold tea, coffee and cocoa at a penny a pint and also provided billiards and reading rooms?
- ... that sniffing for coffee was once a highly paid job?
- ... that during the October 1980 West Nile campaign, rebels were initially hailed as "liberators", only for them to start looting coffee?
- ... that Arab Coffeehouse depicts Henri Matisse's visit to Tangier, where he saw its locals gaze for hours into fishbowls?
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- WikiProject Food and Drink
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- Wikiproject Bacon (inactive)
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Web resources
- World Coffee Research – a 501 (c)(5) nonprofit program of the international coffee industry. (Wikipedia article: World Coffee Research)
- Coffee Research Foundation – based in Kenya, and founded in 1908
- Central Coffee Research Institute – based in Chickmagalur District, India, and founded in 1915