Portal:Coffee
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Introduction
Coffee is a beverage brewed 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.
The 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 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 as the modern beverage appears in modern-day Yemen in southern Arabia in the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines, where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a manner similar to how it is now prepared for drinking. The coffee beans were procured by the Yemenis from the Ethiopian Highlands via coastal Somali intermediaries, and cultivated in Yemen. By the 16th century, the drink had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, later spreading to Europe. (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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Yuenyeung (Chinese: 鴛鴦, often transliterated according to the Cantonese language pronunciation yuenyeung, yinyeung, or yinyong; yuanyang in Mandarin) is a drink created by mixing coffee with tea. It originated in Hong Kong, where it remains popular.
The exact method of creating yuenyeung varies by vendor and region, but it generally consists of brewed coffee and black tea with sugar and milk. According to the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the mixture is three parts coffee and seven parts Hong Kong–style milk tea. It can be served hot or cold. (Full article...)Selected image -
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that Monmouth Coffee Company in Covent Garden was one of the foundations for the third wave of coffee in London?
- ... that in a copyright infringement case over a coffee-table history of the Grateful Dead, the Second Circuit held that a reuser can still claim fair use despite negotiating with the rights holder?
- ... that Arab Coffeehouse depicts Henri Matisse's visit to Tangier, where he saw its locals gaze for hours into fishbowls?
- ... that Bob Dylan poked Emmylou Harris when he wanted her to start singing during the recording of "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)"?
- ... 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 Claudia Quintet was born out of an incident at alt.coffee?
- ... that Kenyan coffee farmer "Pinkie" Jackson amassed Africa's largest collection of native butterflies?
- ... that Justly Watson died suddenly in 1757 from the effects of poison administered in his coffee, it was believed, by a servant?
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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