Caffeine Symphony

An old proverb says: “To an old man a cup of coffee is like the door post of an old house—it sustains and strengthens him.”

Civilisation, as it has moved on , has produced only three important non-alcoholic beverages—the tea plant, the extract of the cocoa bean, and the extract of the coffee bean.

Leaves and beans—these are the vegetable sources of the world’s favourite nonalcoholic table beverages. Of the two, the tea leaves lead in total amount consumed; the coffee beans are second; and the cocoa beans are a distant third, although advancing steadily. 

Coffee is universal in its appeal. It has become recognised as a human necessity. It is no longer a luxury or an indulgence; it is an epithet of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect—the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces.

Coffee has an important place in the rational diet of all the civilised people of earth. It is a democratic & revolutionary beverage. Not only is it the drink of fashionable society; it is also a favourite beverage of the men and the revolutionaries 

“During the tusen years of its development, it has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages.”

“Men and women drink coffee because it adds to their sense of well-being. It not only smells good and tastes good to all mankind, but all respond to its wonderful stimulating properties. The chief factors in coffee goodness are the caffeine content and the coffee’s natural oil, called caffeol. Caffeine increases the capacity for muscular and mental work without harmful reaction. The caffeol supplies the flavor and the aroma —that indescribable exotic fragrance that woos us through the nostrils, forming one of the principal elements that make up the lure of coffee.

Good coffee, carefully roasted and properly brewed, produces a natural beverage that, for tonic effect, cannot be surpassed, even by its rivals, tea and cocoa. 

“While the true origin of coffee drinking may be forever hidden, shrouded as it is in legend and fable, scholars have marshaled sufficient facts to prove that the beverage was known in Ethiopia “from time immemorial,” and there is much to add verisimilitude to this theory.

The coffee drink had its rise in the classical period of Arabian medicine, which dates from Abu Bakr “Rhazes assured his readers that “bunchum (coffee) is hot and dry and very good for the stomach.”

“The most popular coffee origin legend ascribes the discovery of the drink to an Arabian herdsman in upper Egypt, or Abyssinia, who complained to the abbot of a neighbouring monastery that the goats confided to his care became unusually frolicsome after eating the berries of certain shrubs found near their feeding grounds.

The abbot, having observed the fact, determined to try the virtues of the berries on himself. He, too, responded with a new exhilaration. Accordingly, he directed that some be boiled, and the decoction drunk by his monks, who thereafter found no difficulty in keeping awake during the religious services of the night. 

Coffee and Revolution-

One of the most interesting facts in the history of the coffee drink is that wherever it has been introduced, it has spelled revolution. It has been the world’s most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants and to foes of liberty of thought and action. Sometimes the people became intoxicated with their newfound ideas, and, mistaking liberty for license, they ran amuck and called down upon their heads persecutions and many petty intolerances.”

Coffee & Religion ; “In early Grecian and Roman writings, no mention is made of either the coffee plant or the beverage made from the berries. Pierre Delia Valle (1586–1652), however, maintains that the nepenthe, which Homer says Helen brought out of Egypt and employed as surcease for sorrow, was nothing else but coffee mixed with wine. “She mingled with the wine the wondrous juice of a plant which banishes sadness and wrath from the heart and brings with it forgetfulness of every woe.” Several later British authors have suggested the probability of coffee being the “black broth” of the Lacedæmonians.

Philippe Sylvester Dufour mentions as a possible objection against coffee that “the use and eating of beans were heretofore forbidden by Pythagoras,” but intimates that the coffee bean of Arabia is something different.

“Coffee and the Koran:

Still another tradition tells how the coffee drink was revealed to Mohammed himself by the Angel Gabriel. Coffee’s partisans found satisfaction in a passage in the Koran which, they said, foretold its adoption by the followers of the Prophet:

They shall be given to drink an excellent wine, sealed; its seal is that of the musk. 

The most diligent research does not carry a knowledge of coffee back beyond the time of Rhazes, two hundred years after Mohammed. ”

 Coffee and the Bible

George Paschius, in his Latin treatise of the New Discoveries Made since the Time of the Ancients, published in 1700, says he believes that coffee was meant by the five measures of parched corn included among the presents Abigail made to David to “appease his wrath, as recorded in the Bible, 1 Samuel. The Vulgate translates the Hebrew words sein kali into sata polentea, which signify wheat, roasted or dried by fire.

Pierre Étienne Louis Dumant, the Swiss Protestant minister and author, is of the opinion that coffee (and not lentils, as others have supposed) was the red pottage for which Esau sold his birthright; also that the parched grain that Boaz ordered to be given Ruth was undoubtedly roasted coffee berries

“The First Appearance of Coffee in Ethiopia

“The French novelist Emile Souvestre said: “Coffee keeps, so to say, the balance between bodily and spiritual nourishment.”

While the true origin of coffee drinking may be forever hidden, shrouded as it is in legend and fable, scholars have marshaled sufficient facts to prove that the beverage was known in Ethiopia “from time immemorial,” and there is much to add verisimilitude to this theory.

The coffee drink had its rise in the classical period of Arabian medicine, which dates from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya El Razi, called Rhazes, who followed the doctrines of Galen and sat at the feet of Hippocrates. Rhazes, who lived from 850 to 922 A.D., was the first to treat medicine in an encyclopedic manner, and, according to some authorities, the first writer to mention coffee.

Rhazes assured his readers that “bunchum (coffee) is hot and dry and very good for the stomach.

Another Theory Of Coffee Appearance :

The most popular coffee origin legend ascribes the discovery of the drink to an Arabian herdsman in upper Egypt, or Abyssinia, who complained to the abbot of a neighbouring monastery that the goats confided to his care became unusually frolicsome after eating the berries of certain shrubs found near their feeding grounds.

The abbot, having observed the fact, determined to try the virtues of the berries on himself. He, too, responded with a new exhilaration. Accordingly, he directed that some be boiled, and the decoction drunk by his monks, who thereafter found no difficulty in keeping awake during the religious services of the night. 

How the Coffee is Served across the world 

French Coffee

Making coffee in France has been, and always will be, by the drip and the filtration methods. The large hotels and cafés follow these methods almost entirely, and so does the housewife. When company comes, and something unusual in coffee is to be served, Mr. Beeson says he has known the cook to drip the coffee, using a spoonful of hot water at a time, pouring it over tightly packed, finely ground coffee, allowing the water to percolate through to extract every particle of oil. They use more ground coffee in bulk than they get liquid in the cup, and sometimes spend an hour producing four or five demi-tasses. It is needless to say that it is more like molasses than coffee when ready for drinking.”

“The cafés that line the boulevards of Paris and the larger cities of France all serve coffee, either plain or with milk, and almost always with liqueur. The coffee house in France may be said to be the wine house; or the wine house may be said to be the coffee house. They are inseparable. In the smallest or the largest of these establishments, coffee can be had at any time of day or night. The proprietor of a very large café in Paris says his coffee sales during the day almost equal his wine sales.

In the afternoon, café means a small cup or glass of café noir, or café nature. It is double the usual amount of coffee dripped by percolator or filtration device, the process consuming eight to ten minutes. Some understand café noir to mean equal parts of coffee and brandy with sugar and vanilla to taste. When café noir is mixed with an equal quantity of cognac alone, it becomes café gloria. Café mazagran is also much in demand in the summertime”

German: kaffee (coffee tree: kaffeebaum)

Germany originated the afternoon coffee function known as the kaffee-klatsch. Even today, the German family’s reunion takes place around the coffee table on Sunday afternoons. In summer, when weather permits, the family will take a walk into the suburbs, and stop at a garden where coffee is sold in pots. The proprietor furnishes the coffee, the cups, the spoons, and, in normal times, the sugar, two pieces to each cup. The patrons bring their own cake. They put one piece of sugar into each cup and take the other pieces home to the “canary bird,” meaning the sugar bowl in the pantry.”

“Greek: kaféo

Coffee is the most popular and most extensively used nonalcoholic beverage in Greece. Its annual per capita consumption there is about two pounds, two-thirds of the supply coming via Austria and France, Brazil furnishing directly the bulk of the remaining third.

Coffee is given a high or city roast, and is used almost entirely in powdered form. It is prepared for consumption principally in the Turkish demi-tasse way. Finely ground coffee is used even in making ordinary table or breakfast coffee. 

Russian: kophe

Russia drinks more tea than coffee, which is prepared in Turkish fashion by the masses, when obtainable. Usually the coffee is only a cheap “substitute.” The so-called café à la Russe of the aristocracy is strong black coffee flavored with lemon. Another Russian recipe calls for the coffee to be placed in a large punch bowl, and covered with a layer of finely chopped apples and pears; then cognac is poured over the mass, and a match applied.

Portuguese :café-

In Brazil, everyone drinks coffee and at all hours. Cafés making a specialty of the beverage, and modeled after continental originals, are to be found aplenty in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and other large cities. The custom prevails of roasting the beans high, almost to carbonization, grinding them fine, and then boiling after the Turkish fashion, percolating in French drip pots, steeping in cold water for several hours, straining and heating the liquid for use as needed, or filtering by means of conical linen sacks suspended from wire rings.”

Arabia 

“Each cup is made separately, the little saucepan or ladle in which it is prepared being about an inch wide and two deep; this is more than half filled with coffee, finely pounded with a pestle and mortar, and then filled up with water; after being placed for a few seconds on the fire, the contents are poured, or rather shaken, out (being much thicker than chocolate) without the addition of cream or sugar, into a china cup of the size and shape of half an egg-shell, which is enclosed in one ”

TURKISH COFFEE :

Turkish sought to improve the method by adding sugar (a concession to the European sweet tooth) during the boiling process. The improved Turkish recipe is as follows:First boil the water. For two cups of the beverage add three lumps of sugar and return the boiler to the fire. Add two teaspoonfuls of powdered coffee, stirring well and let the pot boil up four times. Between each boiling the pot is to be removed from the fire and the bottom tapped gently until the froth on the top subsides. After the last boiling pour the coffee first into one cup and then the other.

Top Coffee Chains Across

Gross annual sales: $22.38 billion

Starbucks is by far the most popular coffee chain in the world, with over 30,000 stores around the globe.

One of the largest reasons for their success is tied to how they transformed coffee culture in major countries such as the United States.

Prior to Starbucks’ founding in 1971, coffee shops weren’t very common in most countries outside of Europe and Australia.

The vast majority of Americans were only familiar with coffee through the bulk packaged drip coffee that they made at home in the morning or drank at work.

By replicating European coffee cafes, Starbucks was able to turn coffee in the United States into a social experience where you could sit down at the chain and drink a cup with your friend.

Another cornerstone of the coffee giant’s success has been the constant creation and mass-marketing of different novelty coffee drinks, often using heavy amounts of sugar and cream to appeal to a broader audience.

Starbucks drinks often contain even more sugar than most sodas.

Even as other major chains have popped up in the coffee market, Starbucks remains the largest player by a wide margin in terms of both revenue and stores opened.

Tim Hortons. Headquarters: Oakville, 🇨🇦

Gross annual sales: $3 billion

The first Tim Hortons was founded in 1964 by an individual with the same name, and has since expanded into 4,846 stores across 14 countries.

Their initial reasons for growth as well as their continued success are largely the same:

• Food. While most people perceive Starbucks as a coffee chain that happens to sell snacks and pastries, Tim Hortons markets itself as the exact opposite.
• Many Tim Horton fans actually visit the store to buy their donuts and pastries and just happen to order a coffee along with them. 
• Cost and perception. The majority of consumers perceive Dunkin Donuts as a cheap place to get coffee and Starbucks as more of a luxury brand.
• Tim Hortons prices their items and markets themselves to fulfill a niche in the center.
• Customers go to Tim Hortons when they want a quality coffee that’s more affordable than Starbucks. 
• Marketing to Canadians. Tim Horton’s market themselves to tie closely with Canadian identity and pride.
• Many of their commercials and other marketing materials sport maple leaves and slogans celebrating Canadian culture and history.
• Even the company’s red and white color scene is a reference to the nation’s flag.
• This strategy seems to work, as Tim Horton’s beats Starbucks’ presence in Canada in terms of both revenue and stores opened.

Lavazza. Headquarters: Turin, Italy

Gross annual sales: $2.67 billion

Lavazza may be a surprising inclusion at the top of this list for those living in the United States.

The chain only has a handful of stores outside of Italy, with most of its revenue coming from packaged products sold at grocery stores.

Lavazza strategically places their lofty coffee bars at high-end hotels to create a perception of being a luxury brand.

By focusing on image and creating coffee blends with extremely rich and unique flavors, the chain occupies a niche in consumer minds of being the brand to go for when they really desire a good, expensive cup of coffee.

Panera Bread. Headquarters: St. Louis, Missouri

Gross annual sales: $2.8 billion

Panera Bread shares a similar strategy with Tim Hortons in that it focuses on food items instead of coffee.

Although coffee sales comprise a large percentage of the chain’s revenue, most of their marketing material shows off items such as bread, soup, and pastries.

The company also adopts Starbucks’ method of providing a welcoming atmosphere that invites customers to gather and socialize in order to boost sales.

Most stores are designed with warm, brown interiors and pleasant lighting to create such an effect.

Panera Bread is currently exclusive to the United States and Canada, with 2,158 locations open across the two countries.

McCafe. Headquarters: Oak Brook, IllinoiGross annual sales: $2.42 billion

McCafe was created in 1993 and exists under the larger Mcdonald’s brand.

The chain has since expanded to 1,300 stores worldwide.

McCafe’s strategy for success differs greatly from almost every other coffee chain on this list. Their main competitor is arguably not Starbucks, but Dunkin’ Donuts.

The two chains both exist in the same niche of selling affordable, no-frills coffee to consumers who just want a bit of caffeine before work.

However, McCafe doesn’t need to focus on reducing the customer experience and cost-cutting nearly as much as Dunkin’ Donuts.

This is due to their ability to leverage McDonald’s existing supply chains and logistics networks to reduce all the costs associated with shipping ingredients and getting coffee to the end consumer.

McCafe has started to target Starbucks’ customer base more and more in recent years by offering new novelty, decorated coffee drinks.

There are more McCafes than Starbucks in states such as Maine and Michigan.

Costa Coffee. Headquarters: Dunstable, United Kingdom

• Gross annual sales: $1.84 billion
• In many ways, Costa Coffee’s reputation as the Starbucks of Europe and the Middle East makes total sense.
• Both companies were founded in the same year, 1971.
• Both companies also share the same business model of focusing on maximizing customer experience.
• Costa Costa stores all come with dark, moody interiors and comfortable areas to sit around and socialize with friends.
• Strangely, even their logos are almost identical. Really, we invite you to look them up right now.
• Costa Coffee has also replicated Starbucks’ success, with 3,401 stores open across the world. 

Dunkin’ Donuts. Headquarters: Canton, Massachusetts

• Gross annual sales: $1.37 billion
• Dunkin’ Donuts was founded in 1950 and has since grown into over 11,300 stores across the world.
• The chain uses its speed, consistency, and low pricing as its competitive edge and leans into it strongly.
• Starbucks cafes focus on creating lofty and welcoming atmospheres and serving fairly expensive, decorated drinks. Dunkin’ takes the exact opposite approach.
• Most Dunkin’ stores are small and only have a few seats and tables, if any at all. Their coffee is served in small styrofoam cups with rarely any extras other than some sugar and cream.
• By reducing overhead and other costs, Dunkin’ Donuts is able to provide coffee at an extremely low price to people who just want a bit of affordable caffeine during the day.
• Judging by the chain’s sheer presence of stores and their revenue, this strategy seems to be working well.

Peet’s Coffee. Headquarters: Emeryville, California

• Gross annual sales: $983 million
• While Starbucks focuses on capturing as large an audience of coffee consumers as possible, Peet’s Coffee instead focuses on the niche of providing specialty, artisan coffee to coffee hobbyists and connoisseurs.
• The brand started as a single stand operating outside of a truck, and has since blossomed into 200 stores across the United States (plus one in China).
• The stores are welcoming and moody, similar to Starbucks cafes, but tend to be small and only seat a few people.
• Their products also tend towards the pricier side, averaging even higher than most Starbucks drinks.
• Although Peet’s Coffee only has a few stores open, their unique, luxury coffee blends are sold in over 14,000 stores across the United States. 

Dutch Bros. Headquarters: Grants Pass, Oregon

• Gross annual sales: $494 million
• Although Dutch Bros has 379 stores across the western United States, much of their revenue is generated exclusively in the State of Oregon.
• This is largely due to the company targeting many aspects of their marketing to Oregon’s urban and suburban cultures.
• In large population centers such as Portland, many consumers deliberately look for companies that share values such as:
• Transparency
• Environmental 
• Happy employees
• Supporting local businesses
• Most customers perceive Dutch Bros as successfully hitting upon all of these points, contributing to their success

Caribou Coffee. Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minnesota:

• Gross annual sales: $480 million
• Caribou Coffee operates 273 locations in the United States and franchises an additional 203 stores across the world.
• The brand specializes in offering lightly roasted coffees and fruity flavors that are usually only found in chai-tea.
• A large part of their success can also be attributed to baristas that are trained to know extensive coffee-related knowledge that lets them converse with customers and build a welcoming environment.
• States that prefer independent coffee stores and smaller chains over larger ones include Delaware and Montana. 

Coffee Consumption-Across the world

The highest annual per-person consumption is in Scandinavian countries, where long, dark, and cold winters make coffee highly prized. In the United States, annual consumption is about 4.4 kilograms or 9.7 lbs., making the U.S. only the 25th biggest consumer of coffee worldwide on a per-person basis. The average person in the U.S. consumes about three cups of coffee per day.

1. Finland 

1.Finland is the biggest consumer of coffee globally on a per-person basis—the average Finn drinks nearly four cups a day. Coffee is so popular in Finland that two 10-minute coffee breaks are legally mandated for Finnish workers.

2. Norway 

Norwegians drink more than three cups of coffee a day. Coffee houses are popular in Norway, and unlike in the United States, they are primarily places to socialize, not to work or to carry a drink out.

3. Iceland

Beer was not legal in Iceland until 1987, and wine is costly, so coffee has long been the most essential social drink in the country. It is customary in Iceland to offer any visitor a cup of coffee, and Icelanders have a stock reply, tíu dropar, or "ten drops," to indicate that they just want a small cup.

4. Denmark

In Denmark, the word kaffeslabberas means an informal social gathering where coffee and cake is offered, often after dinner. At weddings, people will often be explicitly invited for the bryllupskaffe or wedding coffee reception.

5. Netherlands

Dutch merchants first introduced coffee to the West, shipping entire coffee plants from the Yemeni port of Mocha to India and Indonesia, where they were grown on plantations to supply beans to Europe.

6. Sweden 

Swedes have a word, Fika, to describe an extended coffee break from work where you socialize with friends. Swedes spend on average 9.5 days per year having a fikarast.

7. Switzerland 

The Swiss combined coffee and wine to create a popular drink, Luzerner Kafi, which is red wine added to thin coffee with sugar. The Swiss also created Nespresso, one of the most popular coffee brands in the world.

8. Belgium 

The Belgian cities of Brussels and Antwerp have thousands of coffee houses, including Wittamer's, which serves brûlot, an espresso drink of sugar, cinnamon, cloves, shredded lemon peel, and warm cognac set alight.

9. Luxembourg

Despite being one of the world's smallest countries, Luxembourg has thousands of coffee houses, from elegant houses with white linen table cloths to small, stand-up coffee bars.

10. Canada 

The only country in the top ten not in Europe, Canada spawned one of the world's first coffee chains, Tim Horton's, which makes three out of every four cups of coffee sold in Canada.

Black Ivory Coffee- Most Expensive Coffee Beans

Black Ivory coffee is yet another blend that passed through an animal's digestive system. In this case, elephants in rural Thailand. The digestive process leads to the distinct flavor profile of the coffee. A long fermentation process within the elephant's stomach creates fruity notes in the coffee. Enzymes in the elephant's stomach break down proteins, which lead to a mild, tea-like flavor.