Did you know that coffee beans are actually extracted from a special berry species from coffea flowering plants? That’s right, the tree of Coffea arabica will grow fruits after three to five years, and will produce for about 50 to 60 years (although up to 100 years is possible). The white flowers are highly scented. The fruit takes about 9 months to ripen. Continue reading for more cool and unusual things you may not have known about coffee.
5. Elephant Dung Coffee Exists
Black Ivory Coffee is a brand of coffee exclusively produced by the Black Ivory Coffee Company Ltd in Northern Thailand from Arabica coffee beans consumed by elephants and collected from their feces. The taste of Black Ivory coffee is influenced by elephant’s stomach acid, which breaks down the coffee’s protein. The coffee beans are digested within 15 to 70 hours, and are present with various other ingredients in the elephants’ stomachs, which imparts specific flavors to the product. It has limited availability, and at a few luxury hotels it is available at the price of USD $50 a cup. The supply of Black Ivory coffee depends on the availability of coffee cherries, the appetite of the elephants, the number of beans destroyed through chewing of the beans and the ability of the mahouts and their wives to recover intact beans.
4. Coffee Before Working Out
A cup or two of coffee before an intense workout might actually be beneficial in more ways than one. With the consumption of caffeine, blood pressure, pulse rate, and stomach acid production are increased, fat stores are broken down, and fatty acids are released into the blood stream.
3. Trojan Room Coffee Pot
The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world’s first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee room by providing, on the user’s desktop computer, a live 128 x 128 greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot.
2. The Bean Belt
The Bean Belt is the latitudes in which all coffee plants are grown. The area is between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
1. Antioxidants in Coffee
The presence of antioxidants in coffee have been shown to prevent free radicals from causing cell damage, which could lead to cancer. Antioxidant levels vary depending on how the beans are roasted as well as for how long. Evidence suggests that roasted coffee has a stronger antioxidant effect than green coffee.
