The Coffee Portal
Coffee | Drinks | Coffeehouses | Companies | Culture | Preparation | Production
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.
Coffee production begins when the seeds of the Coffea plant's fruits (coffee cherries) are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are roasted and then ground into fine particles. Coffee is brewed from the ground roasted beans, which are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out. 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. There are also various coffee substitutes.
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...)
Coffee production in Jamaica began after 1728, when governor Sir Nicholas Lawes introduced the crop near Castleton, north of Kingston. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is the special variety of coffee that is grown in the Blue Mountains region, which has the most conducive climate and topographical features; this variety is known for its scent and sweet taste. Most of Jamaica's coffee production is grown for export. (Full article...)
Iced coffee is a coffee beverage served cold. It may be prepared either by brewing coffee normally (i.e. carafe, French press, etc.) and then serving it over ice or in cold milk or by brewing the coffee cold. In hot brewing, sweeteners and flavoring may be added before cooling, as they dissolve faster. Iced coffee can also be sweetened with pre-dissolved sugar in water.
Iced coffee is regularly available in most coffee shops. Iced coffee is generally brewed at a higher strength than normal coffee, given that it is diluted by the melting ice. In Australia, "iced coffee" is a common term for packaged coffee-flavored and sweetened milk beverage. Iced coffee is made by brewing hot coffee, and pouring it over ice; Cold brew coffee is made without heat by steeping coffee grounds into lukewarm water. (Full article...)
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: