8 Curiosities about Coffee that you might not know

There are many curiosities, stories and anecdotes about coffee. Here we propose 8 of them that seem to be the most interesting ones…

1. What is the origin of the word “Coffee”?

There are two possible explanations:

Explanation 1
In the Middle Ages, around the year 1000, Arabs obtained from coffee beans coming from Africa an exciting beverage they called “qahwa“, which means “exciting”. From here the Turks started to call it “kahve” until they reached the Italian “caffè“.

Explanation 2
The name comes from the region of Ethiopia where the coffee plant grows spontaneously. The region is called “Caffa“.

2. Why is “Cappuccino” called this?

Coffee arrives in Europe in the half of 1600 and, in the Vienna of Emperor Leopold I, it arrived in the year in which the Capuchin monk Marco d’Aviano was introduced at the court of the emperor. The monk wore the typical light brown cape which recalls the color of coffee mixed with milk. Thus was born the neologism “cappuccino” to indicate the coffee beverage.

3. Arabian Wine

In the seventeenth century coffee in Europe was called “Arabian wine” because it was the beverage with which, in the nearby Ottoman Empire, Muslims replaced the wine forbidden by Islam.

4. Only water beats it

Coffee is the most common and consumed beverage of the world, second only to water. Every day in fact, almost 1.6 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world.

>> Do you want to know the History of Coffee and its Legends? <<

5. Where do people drink the most coffee?

In Finland. The Scandinavian country consumes 12 kg of coffee per capita each year.

6. What is the ideal time to drink coffee?

According to chronopharmacology and neuroscience, the best time of day to drink caffeine is between 9:30 and 11:30 am.

7. Is there caffeine in decaffeinated coffee?

Yes, even decaffeinated coffee contains a small amount of caffeine. During the decaffeination process, in fact, up to 98% of caffeine is subtracted. This is certainly a very high percentage of subtraction but it is not equal to one hundred percent. There is only one variant of naturally decaffeinated coffee: Coffea Charrieriana, a plant originating from Cameroon which produces drupes 6 mm long.

8. Johann Sebastian Bach

The renowned German composer, born in Eisenach, in Thuringia (land then part of the Holy Roman Empire), Johann Sebastian Bach loved coffee so much that he dedicated to it the “coffee cantata”, the “Kaffeekantate“, performed in Leipzig between 1732 and 1735.