What’s the significance of coffee?
Coffee
For those of us who drink coffee, we can all agree it has become a mainstay in our culture. I was curious about the history of coffee, how and when it was discovered, and how it has had an impact on our world so here is my brief synopsis of the significance of Coffee.
History
It is said that the coffee plant was discovered by an Arab goat herder in the Kaffa region of Ethiopia more than 1,200 years ago. The story says the shepherd noticed his goats had a lot more energy after eating the berries of the plant. The shepherd gathered berries from the plants and later boiled them. The first cup of coffee was consumed in or around the year 800 AD.
For many years the coffee berries were simply boiled to produce the beverage. We can thank the Arabs for introducing the science of roasting the beans to produce the coffee we all enjoy today. Roasting has a significant impact on the physical characteristics and flavor of the coffee bean. The lighter roasts are typically sweeter and more palatable. The darker roasts, especially espresso, essentially remove all of the sweetness from the bean. This is typically why espresso is cut with milk and other ingredients to replace the sugars that were lost during the dark roasting process.
Costa Rica Mountains
