Coffee Facts
<span class="bodytextwhite"> <ul type="square" compact> <li>Coffee is cultivated in 76 countries. Without exception, they are located between 230 latitude north and 250 latitude south of the equator.</li> <li>There are more than 80 known coffee species but that only Arabica and Robusta are commercially used by the coffee industry.</li> <li>Up to 100 arabica plants have to be harvested to yield a sack of green beans, average weight 60 kilograms.</li> <li>1 kilogram of roasted coffee requires 4,000 - 5,000 coffee beans.</li> <li>Coffee beans lose 15% of their weight during roasting, but increase in volume at the same time.</li> <li>There are 800 known substances in roasted coffee? Most develop during the roasting process, but none of these alone has an affect on the aroma or taste all by itself.</li> <li>The First records of coffee being consumed in North America were in 1668 and 1670, when William Penn wrote of buying green (coffee) beans in New York.</li> <li>The oldest European coffee house. In 1554, two enterprising young men, Hakim from Aleppo and Dschems from Damascus, opened the first coffee house on European soil in Constantinople (Istanbul today).</li> <li>The oldest existing coffee house. The oldest coffee house which still exists today is the "Bremer Kaffeestube" located in Schuetting, Germany. It opened in 1700.</li> <li>The first time coffee was mentioned in European literature. Leonhart Rauwolf of Augsburg, Germany, traveled through the orient from 1573-1576 and discovered coffee in Aleppo, Syria. In his travel log, he was the first European to write about coffee as a beverage.</li> <li>The first coffee magazine. The first regular coffee magazine was published in 1707 by Theophila Georgi. It was titled "The New and Curious Coffee House".</li> <li>The first cup of coffee with milk added. Around 1660, the Dutch Ambassador to China, Mr. Nieuhoff, was the first person to mix coffee with milk. He imitated the habit of adding milk to tea.</li> <li>The first instant coffee. In 1881, Dr. Satori Kato of Japan presented the first instant coffee during the Pan-American World Fair. It was patented in 1903 in the U.S.A. The first successful commercial introduction of this product was achieved by Nestle in 1938. Nestle's improvements to the production process resulted in a much higher quality product.</li> <li>The first decaffeinated coffee. The first attempts to produce caffeine-free coffee by using an organic solvent were made in 1900. However, it was Ludwig Roselius of Germany who had the innovative idea to soak the green beans with water steam before extraction in order to make the caffeine soluble. This method was patented in 1905. The first decaffeinated coffee was marketed by "Kaffee Hag" of Germany in 1906 and became a worldwide success.</li> <li>The rarest coffee tree. The rarest variety of coffee is the "Ramosmania Heterophylla" plant. Only one single bush of this rare variety has survived in the Royal Botanical Garden in London. The bush is only 5 inches high.</li> </ul> </span>
