Coffee, origins and legends

 

There are several legends about the discovery of coffee. One version dates it back to 850 and locates it in Abyssinia, present-day Ethiopia.

A shepherd reportedly noticed that his goats were excited after eating the leaves and fruit of a shrub. He allegedly brought a branch of the shrub to a monk, who prepared a drink from the seeds collected. Astonished by the exhilarating effect of the liquid, the monks attributed the authorship of this drink to a deity.

Another legend has it that the monk, after observing the agitation of the goats consuming the berries, had the idea of boiling the grains in order to obtain a potion that would help him to stay awake on nights of prayers.

The word "coffee" probably originates from the Arabic "K'hawah" which means invigorating, while some linguists claim that it comes from the word "Kaffa", the name of the province of Ethiopia where it was discovered.

In the 15th century, places of conviviality called “coffee houses” gradually flourished. We play there and we taste coffee.

 

The coffee tree

Coffee trees are shrubs from the tropics of the genus Coffea of the Rubiaceae family.

The species Coffea arabica (historically the oldest cultivated) and Coffea canephora (or robusta coffee tree), are those used in the preparation of the drink. Other species of the genus Coffea have been tested for this purpose or are still locally used, but have never experienced wide distribution.

Coffea arabica, which produces a fine and aromatic coffee, requires a cooler climate than Coffea canephora (robusta), which produces a drink rich in caffeine. The more delicate and less productive Arabica culture is therefore rather reserved for mountain lands, while that of Robusta adapts to lowland lands with higher yields.

The mother plant of most Arabica plants in the world is kept at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam.

Depending on the variety, the coffee tree can reach 4 to 6 m in height. However, cultivated species are cut back to about 4 m for easier picking. The coffee tree does not begin to produce fruit until its 5th and 6th year. Its white flowers give rise to fleshy, red, purple, or yellow fruits, called coffee cherries. Measuring between 1 and 2 cm in length, these fruits are home to two pale green seeds, covered with a leathery membrane, the parchment, containing between 1 and 2% caffeine depending on the species. As the coffee trees produce year round, you can find flowers, green coffee cherries and red cherries on a single branch. Picking lasts an average of 3 months. The coffee tree maintained at the dimensions of a small shrub retains high productivity for more than 30 years.

The grains are still picked manually, because their ripening is not uniform and mechanical picking does not yet give satisfactory results.

Coffee conquers the world not without controversies

In the 15th century, Muslims introduced coffee to Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Turkey, where the first coffee, Kiva Han, opened in 1475 in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

]

Café Kiva Han à Constantinople, Turquie

The craze is such that a Turkish divorce law at the time specifies that a woman can divorce her husband if the latter fails to provide her with a daily dose of coffee.

In Mecca on June 20, 1511, the Pasha Khair Bey noticed a group of men drinking coffee. He noticed his special qualities and gathered a group of scholars and lawyers to decide whether the drink complied with the Koran, which prohibits all forms of intoxication. As Antony Wild notes, it's easy to forget that coffee is a potent drug, the introduction of which required cultural consensus, but certainly not medical in the West. Also, heated debates accompanied the beginning of the introduction of coffee in the Islamic world.

Le porteur de café par John Frederick Lewis

In 1511, Khair Bey closed all cafes and led a campaign of disinformation against the misdeeds of coffee when he learned that the criticisms against his power would all come from coffee drinkers. The closure of cafes sparked revolts, prompting the governor of Egypt to revoke the ban. Coffee consumption can then continue to grow. There are a thousand cafes in Cairo in 1630.

Around 1600, coffee arrived in Europe thanks to the Venetians. Very consumed in Venice, it is however subject to controversy and certain advisers of the Pope ask him to ban it. But after having tasted and appreciated it, Clement VIII decides to rename it and to democratize its consumption, all the monks then begin to consume it.

Around 1650, England imported coffee and the first coffees appeared. Intellectuals come together to philosophize around a "little black man".

In 1670, the first café opened in Berlin.

In 1672 the first Parisian café was born, the Procope, an establishment founded by a Sicilian, who had himself bought a shop from the Armenians. In 1686, a new way of preparing it was invented: by percolating hot water into the coffee retained by a filter.

The history of Vienna's famous cafes begins with the Battle of Vienna in 1683. From the defeated Turks, bags of green beans are seized which turn out to be coffee.

In the middle of the 18th century, every city in Europe had cafes

Around the 1650s, coffee began to be imported and consumed in England, and cafes opened in Oxford and London. The cafes become places where liberal ideas are born, through their frequentation by philosophers and scholars. Pamphlets and libels are distributed in cafes.

In 1676, this agitation prompted the King's attorney in England to order cafes to be closed, citing crimes of lese majesty against King Charles II and the kingdom. The reactions are such that the closing edict must be revoked. The coffee-powered flow of ideas will profoundly change the UK. There were more than two thousand cafes there in 1700. The famous Lloyd's insurance company was originally a cafe founded in 1688.

The café crossed the Atlantic in 1689 with the opening of the first establishment in Boston. The drink gained popularity and achieved the rank of national drink after the rebels threw the tea overtaxed by the British crown into the sea during the Boston Tea Party. This helping hand is prepared in the Dragon Vert café.

In 1732, Jean-Sébastien Bach composed an ode to coffee.

Gradually, over the centuries, the consumption of coffee has spread around the world to become a daily act.

 

Coffee culture around the world

 

During the 18th century, the drink became popular in Europe, and European settlers introduced coffee cultivation in many tropical countries, as an export crop to meet European demand. Haiti, Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire are among the largest coffee producers in the world.

In the 19th century, demand in Europe often exceeded supply and stimulated the use of various substitutes with similar tastes, such as chicory root.

Coffee begins to be cultivated in the English colonies, particularly in Ceylon, but the plantations are ravaged by disease and are eventually replaced by tea plantations.

The Dutch have it grown in Indonesia.

In 1714, the French infantry captain Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu stole a cutting from a plant offered by Holland to Louis XIV and kept in the royal greenhouses to plant it on the slopes of Mount Pelée in Martinique and Saint Domingue. Fifty years later, there are 19 million plants in Martinique.

The first plantation in Brazil was established in 1727 by Francisco de Mello Palheta. Its industry depends on the practice of slavery which was abolished in 1888.

Annual production in the 20th century was 6-7 million tonnes, while 100 years earlier it was only 100,000 tonnes.

Plantations can be made in the open, which facilitates the organization of cropping operations and increases fruit production, but decreases the longevity and resistance to diseases of coffee trees. Plantations can also be made in partial shade (we speak of shade coffee), which corresponds better to the autecology of the species, but reduces productivity and complicates management. There are many variations on shade growing methods, from planting directly in the forest to clever combinations of shelter trees pruned according to the fruiting stage of the coffee trees or to polyculture systems. Shade plantations generally induce better biodiversity, however very variable in quality depending on the systems used and compared to the initial natural state.

When the fruits reach maturity, 6 to 8 months after flowering for arabica, 9 to 11 months for robusta, the coffee harvest can begin. Two methods are used: picking or destemming.

Picking consists of manually picking only perfectly ripe cherries. This is the most expensive technique, which requires you to go back several days on the same shrub, but which provides the best coffee qualities.

On the contrary, destemming consists of scraping the branch of all its cherries, the process possibly being mechanized. This expedient technique is used to harvest a heterogeneous mixture of more or less ripe cherries, at the origin of more acidic coffees (because of the still green fruits).

Drying or washing

The coffee fruit is a type of drupe, that is, the beans are covered with the flesh of a fruit. After harvesting, the coffee should be quickly freed from its fleshy husk by drying or washing.

Séchage traditionnel à la main, Panama

Drying is carried out on drying areas, where the coffee cherries are spread out and regularly raked. In a few days, the fleshy part becomes dehydrated and partly disintegrates.

Washing can only concern very ripe fruits (harvested by picking). The process involves, after breaking the skin of the cherry, soaking the fruit in water long enough for fermentation to break down the fleshy part. This results in washed coffees, described as “clean and shiny”, generally less acidic and with a better flavor. The technique, often mechanized, requires the availability of tanks and a sufficient water supply.

Sorting of grains by separation in vates of water

After drying or washing, the coffee bean is still enclosed in the stone of the fruit (the endocarp): it is shell coffee (after drying) or parchment coffee (after washing). It must be sorted, in order to eliminate any rotten, discolored or damaged beans. Sorting can be mechanized in industrial plants using photoscope sensor cameras (CCDs), but this is still often done manually in developing countries.

Coffee can be stored, protected by its shell for a while. Some crops are even aged this way to improve the flavor of the coffee.

The last preparation operation, making it possible to obtain green coffee, therefore consists in mechanically dehulling the beans. It also rids the grain of its thin silvery skin (the integument). The hulls are generally recovered and used as fuel.

It is the dried or washed, then shelled grains that are traded on international markets.

Decaffeination

 

The taste of coffee without the excitement: it is to meet such demand that the decaffeination processes have been developed.

The decrease in caffeine content comes at the expense of taste qualities. In addition, decaffeination is never total. In most cases, five to ten cups of decaffeinated coffee per day will provide a dose of caffeine equivalent to that of 2 cups of caffeinated coffee. This study by an American team tested nine brands of decaffeinated coffee by gas chromatography. All but one contained caffeine in very significant doses: from 8.6 mg to 13.9 mg of caffeine, for an average of 85 mg in an equivalent dose of non-decaffeinated coffee, which is enough - according to Dr. Mark S. Gold, professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida, for causing physical dependence on coffee in some consumers of decaffeinated.

Several methods exist. Their general principle consists in soaking the beans in water then in extracting the caffeine from the liquid thus obtained by adding organic solvent or by adsorption on activated charcoal, and finally in re-soaking the beans in the liquid depleted in caffeine so that 'they reabsorb the other compounds still present. The solvent, mainly ethyl carbon dioxide acetate found in fruits, never comes into contact with the kernels, only with the water in which the kernel has soaked. There is also a method of decaffeination using a pressurized jet.

Coffee can be served as is, or mixed with milk or cream. It is frequently sweet, and sometimes it is added chocolate or spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom. It is usually served hot, but iced coffee drinks have become popular recently. The taste for coffee is not spontaneous, but must be cultivated, since its flavor is strong and bitter.

Green coffee

 

Green coffee, not having undergone the cooking step, is therefore richer in molecules such as caffeine, chlorogenic acid or even cafestol and kahweol.

Chlorogeneric acid, a polyphenol that belongs to the class of anti-oxidants, helps fight cell aging.

Cafestol and kahweol are specific molecules of the green coffee bean. These are diterpenes, like retinol (Vitamin A). They are involved in the secretion of an enzyme in the liver, Gluthation-S-transferase, which helps digestion and the elimination of toxins. An American scientific publication dating from August 2002 shows the anti-carcinogenic effect of the diterpenes cafestol and kahweol.

Caffeine, on the other hand, increases energy expenditure and improves fat burning. It facilitates the elimination of sugars and has an anti-migraine action.

All these draining, stimulating and well-being properties of green coffee associated with an adapted diet will contribute to weight loss.

 

Green coffee infusion recipe

Place 10 green coffee beans in a tall glass of water at the end of the day.

Reserve overnight in the refrigerator.

The next morning, remove the coffee beans and drink the decoction.

The cold decoction extracts as many molecules as possible, including caffeine. This drink is not recommended for people who are sensitive to caffeine or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Vegan green coffee flan recipe

 

- 40g of brown cane sugar

- 4 sachets of agar agar of 4g each (100% natural gelling agent)

- 1.2 L of water

- 1 cup of green coffee beans

 

In a saucepan, infuse the green coffee beans over low heat for 1 hour.

Add the agar agar and sugar and mix vigorously until it comes to a boil.

Filter the coffee beans.

Divide the liquid among 4 large mugs or 8 coffee cups.

Leave in the refrigerator overnight or half a day.

Your custard is ready to be tasted!

It's a light dessert that is as original as you want!

 

Stimulating properties

The caffeine molecule

Coffee contains caffeine, an alkaloid having, among other things, stimulating properties. For this reason, it is mostly consumed in the morning or during working hours, and sometimes late at night, by those who want to stay awake and focused. Decaffeinated coffee, or "decaf", from which most of the caffeine has been removed, allows you to enjoy the taste of coffee without the stimulation. There are also herbal teas that taste similar to coffee, but which do not contain caffeine.

Addiction to coffee (caffeine) is very common and withdrawal gives rise to noticeable symptoms.

When brewing coffee, caffeine appears last. When the water passes through the coffee grounds, it will first soak up the aromas and then only the caffeine. We find the opposite pattern for theine. So, contrary to popular belief, a long espresso will be more exciting than a strong coffee. The level of caffeine also depends on the type of coffee. Arabica, which is more expensive than Robusta, contains more flavor and less caffeine. It is for this reason that we often find mixtures of Arabica and Robusta.

Taste properties

As with other products, such as wine, aroma plays a major role in how much you enjoy drinking a cup of coffee. This aroma is perceived by the nasal mucosa either directly, through the nose, or retronasally through the pharynx when the volatile compounds rise to the olfactory mucosa.

There are at least 800 chemical compounds in coffee. Their proportion and nature determine the specificity of the coffee in question. By way of example, and to cite a few major compounds, we find: vanillin, guaiacol and 4-Ethylguaiacol (phenolic and spicy), 2,3-butadione (butter flavor), 2-Methoxy-3 -isobutylpyrazine (earthy), methional (potato and sweet) and finally 2-Furfurylthiol (flavor, simply, of coffee). Other compounds provide sensations of hazelnut, walnut, caramel and, more surprisingly, mushroom, meat, etc.

Most of these compounds degrade in air and light, which explains the usual advice to store ground coffee in an airtight container under vacuum, away from heat and light. Storing coffee in bean form and grinding it at the last moment minimizes the contact surface with the air, and therefore the likelihood of flavor degradation.

Therapeutic properties

 

A 12-year study in Finland, the country that holds the record for coffee consumption with an average of nine cups per day per adult, by the National Institute of Public Health in Helsinki on 14,600 people aged 35 to 64 without a history of cardiovascular disease, has just delivered astonishing conclusions that researchers cannot explain. It seems that the more coffee an individual consumes, the more the risk of type II diabetes would tend to decrease.

A new Canadian study, carried out on more than 40,000 people (!), Published in the journal "Arthritis et rheumatism" (reported among others by France 2, July 2007) suggests a reduction in the risk of gout in men when drinking coffee . This decrease can reach 40% from 4 cups per day. This relationship, however, has not been found with decaffeinated and tea. According to this study, coffee would also be beneficial against:

- Alzheimer's

- Type 2 diabetes (in which insulin does not play a role)

- Liver cancer and probably some other cancers (the study is ongoing)

Please note: contrary to popular belief, espresso is less caffeinated than simple filter coffee or coffee made from percolation! And as we have written on this page, remember that arabica coffee contains half the caffeine than robusta.

According to the New York Times newspaper, there are antioxidants in coffee, which would prevent cell damage due to free radicals. According to ASIC (the International Scientific Association of Coffee), this "anti-aging" action is due to the polyphenols contained in coffee but should be put into perspective because coffee "has both beneficial and harmful effects in vitro, these effects being dose dependent ”.

Is coffee good or bad for you?

It is true that coffee increases blood pressure in occasional drinkers but it also has virtues: it provides minerals (potassium), vitamin PP and of course caffeine which stimulates the nervous system, the intellect and the digestion. However, it also decreases the absorption of some B vitamins and iron and can also disrupt sleep.

 

Other uses of coffee

The coffee extract is used in confectionery and pastry to flavor ice creams, candies, macaroons, etc. as well as to make traditional mocha (a Savoy cookie coated with a thick layer of butter, sugar and coffee cream) .

Caffeine, which can be extracted from coffee, enters, for its stimulating properties, in the composition of certain sodas, certain energy drinks or certain drugs in particular appreciated by some students spending sleepless nights reviewing.

The coffee beans, after roasting and infusion, are distilled to produce creams or coffee liquor.