Coffee is drunk frequently, but do you know how much about it?

The Source of Coffee

The word "Coffee" comes from a place called Kaffa, a town in Ethiopia. In Greek, "Kaweh" means "strength and passion." Tea, coffee and cocoa are three popular drinks in the world.

The Origin of Coffee Beans

Coffee trees are evergreen small trees or shrubs grown in tropical and subtropical regions. There are long oval leaves with white flowers in coffee trees and they form dark red fruits. Coffee trees can only be planted in the areas between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer, which is the so-called "coffee belt". According to the coffee production, the countries listed in chronological order are Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia. Coffee is classified into 3 categories: small, medium and large in fruit size.

Types of Coffee Beans

In the coffee market, there are three main original species, they are Arabica (Coffee Arabica), Robusta (Coffee Robusta) and Laibiruika (Coffee Liberica). Small fruit is mainly used for daily drinking coffee, medium fruit coffee is mainly used in instant coffees.

Brewing Coffee

Daily drinking coffee is brewed from coffee beans by several steps with a variety of utensils. Coffee beans are the seeds come from the coffee berries after several processes: removing the flesh, fermentation, drying processes, and baking by appropriate methods. Freshly harvested raw beans are almost tasteless, after heating and baking, water is removed, the coffee beans will undergo chemical changes in their composition, and produce rich volatile coffee aroma. At the same time, the beans also show the unique taste of coffee, a combination of sweetness, sourness and bitterness, the source of various flavours in coffee:

• Bitterness - caffeine;

• Sourness - tannin;

• Sweetness – during the baking process, part of the sugar in the coffee beans becomes coking, the rest is sweetness;

• Aroma (smell of coffee) – the fat, protein and carbohydrates inside the coffee beans are an important source of the aroma.

The Benefits of Coffee

• Coffee contains certain nutrients, except vitamin B in niacin, there are free fatty acids, caffeine, tannic acid, etc.

• Coffee has a diuretic and damp removal effect, beneficial to the skin, can be an appetizer, and can reduce fatigue.

• Research shows that three cups of coffee a day can prevent gallstones.

• Hypertension, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis patients or patients with stomach illness, elder ladies, pregnant women are not suitable to drink coffee frequently.

Consumers' Foundation in Taiwan reminds that daily caffeine intake should not be more than three hundred milligrams, in general, that is the amount of caffeine content in about two cups of coffee.

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