Coffee

Coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted coffee beans, which are the seeds of berries from the Coffea plant. Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in the equatorial regions of the Americas, Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. The two most commonly grown are the highly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but stronger and more hardy robusta. The latter is resistant to the coffee leaf rust, Hemileia vastatrix, but has a more bitter taste. Once ripe, coffee beans are picked, processed, and dried. Green (unroasted) coffee beans are one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Once traded, the beans are roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee is slightly acidic (pH 5.0–5.1) and can have a stimulating effect on humans because of its caffeine content. Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world. It can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, cappucino, cafe latte, etc.). It is usually served hot, although iced coffee is also served. The effect of coffee on human health has been a subject of many studies; however, results have varied in terms of coffee's relative benefit. The majority of recent research suggests that moderate coffee consumption is benign or mildly beneficial in healthy adults. However, the diterpenes in coffee may increase the risk of heart disease. Coffee cultivation first took place in Ethiopia. The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen. In the Horn of Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in local religious ceremonies. As these ceremonies conflicted with the beliefs of the Christian church, the Ethiopian Church banned the secular consumption of coffee until the reign of Emperor Menelik II. The beverage was also banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons, and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe. Coffee is a major export commodity: it was the top agricultural export for twelve countries in 2004, the world's seventh-largest legal agricultural export by value in 2005, and "the second most valuable commodity exported by developing countries," from 1970 to circa 2000. This last fact is frequently misstated; see commodity market, below. Further, green (unroasted) coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Consequently, fair trade coffee and organic coffee are an expanding market. Etymology: The first reference to coffee in the English language is in the form chaona, dated to 1598 and understood to be a misprint of chaoua (equivalent, in the orthography of the time, to chaova). This term and "coffee" both derive from the Ottoman Turkish kahve (قهوه), by way of the Italian caffè. In turn this derives from the Arabic qahwah. This is traditionally held to have originally referred to a type of wine, whose etymology is given by Arab lexicographers as deriving from the verb qahā (قها, "to lack hunger") in reference to the drink's reputation as an appetite suppressant. It is sometimes alternatively traced to the Arabic quwwah (قوة, "power, energy") or to Kaffa, a medieval kingdom in Ethiopia whence the plant was exported to Arabia. Others with "equally little authority" even hold that the region was named after the drink. The connection to "Kaffa" has been disputed, however. The name qahwah is not used for the berry or plant (the products of the region), which are known in Arabic as bunn (بن) and Shoa as būn. Semitic had a root qhh "dark color", which, since "coffee" is dark in color, became a natural designation for the beverage. According to this analysis, the feminine form qahwah (also meaning "dark in color, dull(ing), dry, sour") was likely chosen to parallel the feminine khamr (خمر, "wine"), and originally meant "the dark one".