National Gourmet Coffee Day

Gourmet Coffee Day is January 18^th every year. What's your caffeine 'drug' of choice - latte, Americano, espresso, nitro cold brew? Gourmet Coffee Day is the day to celebrate your favorite gourmet form whatever it may be!

History of Coffee

Legend has it that coffee comes from the forests of the Ethiopian Highlands. In the 15th and 16th centuries, coffee was grown and traded in the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. In the mid-17th century, coffee reached Europe. In the mid-1600s, coffee arrived in the New World (present-day USA) and became a popular drink in 1773 when the Tea Party revolt in Boston was caused by high taxes on tea.

Interesting Facts about Coffee

• Coffee beans are actually seeds
• Brazil is the country that grows the most coffee in the world.
• Only two U.S. states grow coffee: California and Hawaii
• Kopi Luawk coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world, it can cost up to $600/pound!
• People have tried to ban coffee
• You can overdose on coffee
• In 2012 the largest cup of coffee made it into the Guinness World Record Book, 9 feet tall, and 3,487 gallons
• The word "coffee" comes from the Arabic word for "wine."

History of National Gourmet Coffee Day

There are many coffee-specific holidays throughout the year, but today we celebrate coffee crème de la crème: gourmet coffee. It can be enjoyed at home or at a coffee shop, and can even be used in dishes. According to some people, coffee must score at least 80 to be considered gourmet coffee if measuring on a 100-point scale, while Coffee Review lists rated coffees. Their highest score is at least 94.

Different beans and blends have different flavors. 70% of the quality of a coffee bean comes from its genetic characteristics, while about 30% is determined by how and where it is grown. Arabica beans are a premium type of coffee bean, while robusta beans are less flavorful and cheaper to grow. The best coffee - coffee that can be called gourmet - is made from one hundred percent arabica beans. More than half of the world's coffee beans are arabica.

Arabica beans need to be grown at a higher altitude than Robusta beans. They thrive at an altitude of about 1,200 meters and grow best at an average temperature of about 70 degrees. Costa Rica is an example of where Arabica beans grow well, the volcanic soil supporting their growth. In general, Arabica coffee is grown in the "coffee belt", an area between latitudes 25 degrees north and 30 degrees south.

In order for Arabica seeds to grow well, they must be harvested and processed in a particular way. Coffee cherries should be harvested by hand to pick only ripe ones. The fruit is then dehydrated, leaving the pea, which is then sun-dried. Then they need to be properly roasted and packaged.

Coffee beans are native to Ethiopia, and there are different legends about how and when the drink was first brewed. One story goes that a sixth century Kaffa goatherd named Kaldi saw his goats come to life after eating coffee beans. A monk named Mullah apparently noticed this and made a beverage and spread it throughout the region. Another story from the 15th century claims that a ninth-century mufti - an Islamic legal expert - of Aden was the first to make the drink, and it later became popular in the courts. Middle East.

Coffee was brought to Italy in 1615, and to France in 1644. It became a popular drink in the court of Louis XIV in 1669 after it was introduced by the Turkish ambassador. Later, France brought coffee seedlings to the Caribbean island of Martinique, and the plant eventually spread throughout Central and South America. Indonesia and Java got to know the coffee tree thanks to the Dutch.

The first coffee shop opened in London in 1688, and around the same time in the American colonies, when the drink was introduced there in 1670 by the Dutch. During the Revolutionary War, sales of coffee increased by 600 percent due to opposition to tea, but it fell out of popularity after the war, as coffee itself was very expensive. In the 1860s, the American Coffee Corporation was founded and began buying coffee beans directly from Brazil and Columbia, which made coffee cheaper for Americans. Today coffee beans from Brazil account for about a third of what is used worldwide, and Columbia is the world's second largest supplier of coffee beans.

By 1878, coffee was first sold in sealed cans. There are many popular brands today, one of them is Maxwell House. It was served at the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, and was drunk by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. It is debated whether he coined their slogan, "Good to the Last Drop". Another coffee innovation, the creation of decaf coffee, was born in 1903, but it didn't become popular until the 1930s. It now accounts for about a quarter of the coffee market.

There are different types of coffee roasts, and the rise in preference for darker roasts in the United States is driven by the proliferation of coffee shops around the country. This boom began with the opening of a Starbucks store in Seattle in 1983. There seems to be an endless debate about whether coffee is good or bad for you, but there also seems to be a consensus that has many health benefits, but some limitations.

How to Celebrate Gourmet Coffee Day

• Buy some H.C. Lover's Coffee
• Invest in a quality coffee maker
• Grind your own coffee beans
• Buy a cup that you absolutely love
• Take a trip to places famous for their coffee
• Whether you prefer black coffee or with milk and sugar, hot or iced - enjoy some. Go out and buy or brew your favorite coffee on National Gourmet Coffee Day.