Daily A~Musing #41: Coffee

When I smell coffee, waves of joy and rapture wash over my entire body and I feel like I could float away in a sea of frothy cappuccino (hazelnut, with two Splendas, thank you).  Coffee makes me happy on so many different levels, I don't even think I can find sufficiently accurate words in the English language that could encompass the depth and intensity of it all.  Coffee satisfies so many of the senses;  it smells divine, it tastes delicious, it's never boring (SOOOO many different ways to make it), it can be presented beautifully (check out some coffee art online...some cool coffee houses make lovely little designs in your cups with cream/foam), it warms the belly and it contains caffeine which can be a real bonus some days. 

I've frequently said that 63% of my overall personality can be directly correlated to my coffee consumption on any given day.  No coffee...I'm a grouch who can barely function.  Some coffee, I'm pleasant, reasonable and fairly productive until about 4pm when it starts wearing off.  Too much coffee and I can clean my whole house, your whole house, run five miles and balance the national budget all in one afternoon.  (No, really.  I've done it before.  Apparently caffeine also enhances my feeble Math skills...shoulda been getting it intravenously during all those years in Algebra classes where they pointed to my beloved alphabet again and again and said, "Solve it!"  As IF the alphabet were a problem to be solved...Oi.)

Some Nifty Coffee Factoids
*The earliest recorded coffee enthusiasts were from Yemen...that's in Arabia apparently
*Coffee has been used in religious ceremonies in Africa and Arabia and has also been banned here and there for religiously affiliated reasons
*The modern espresso machine was born in Milan, Italy in 1945
*Coffee beans are not actually beans at all, but seeds from cherry-esque berries from the coffee shrubs
*It takes 2,000 coffee berries to make one pound of coffee
*Hawaii is the only state in the U.S. that produces coffee
*Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world
*Dunkin Donuts was the first major coffee purveyor in the U.S. to use Fair Trade coffee, but as of 2009, Starbucks was the largest consumer of Fair Trade Coffee (go to their websites...it's fascinating)
*Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Coffee Cantata about dependence upon cofffee

*Coffee is second only to oil as the most valuable traded commodity in the world

(Halo coffee break)

I prefer to grind my own beans at home so I can get the biggest bang for my buck.  I keep my beans in a sealed jar to keep them nice and moist and only buy small quantities to preserve freshness.  I use very cold, filtered well water from my own tap to make sure no funny flavors interfere with the yummyness of my coffee.  Previously ground coffee is okay as long as you consume it quickly and don't leave it laying about for a month.  However, it is absolute sacrilege to consume any coffee that has been cremated and packed in a giant tin to last for a century unless you are so desperate for caffeine you don't care that your coffee will taste like dishwater.  (If anyone from those Big Tin companies is reading this, please note:  Your coffee sucks.  And I mean that in the kindest possible way, but seriously.  It's really bad.)  So, if you don't have an ulcer and you're inclined to partake of the bean, go forth and java jive through the rest of your day with my compliments.