Know Your Food: Who Wants Coffee?

Chances are you’ve had a cup of coffee today. Whether as a morning energy boost, an afternoon pick-me-up or part of a social activity, coffee drinking has become a daily habit for billions of people. From Ethiopian buna to whipped Korean dalgona to American nitro cold brew, there are countless ways of preparing and drinking coffee.

Every year, people consume over 10 billion kilograms of this dark, bitter beverage. But where does coffee come from?

We likely discovered the magical properties of the coffee bean—the seeds of Coffea, a genus native to parts of Africa and tropical Asia—centuries ago. As legend has it, around 800 C.E., a young Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats wouldn’t sleep at night after munching on the berries of coffee plants. Learning this, local monks began using the berries to make a drink that would keep them awake through long nights of prayer.

Whether this is truly the origin of coffee or simply an enchanting myth is anyone’s guess. What we do know is that coffee beans most likely spread east from Ethiopia toward the Arabian Peninsula. The drink became a part of everyday life in Yemen, Persia and Turkey during the 16th century. Starting in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), coffee houses began popping up as places to exchange news, listen to music and play chess. (The word ‘coffee’ likely comes from the Arabic qahwah, which today refers to coffee but then meant wine—earning the drink the nickname ‘wine of Arabia’.)

Coffee reached the western hemisphere in the 18th century, after a French naval officer transported seedlings to Martinique, which later spread to other parts of the Caribbean and South America. Today, Brazil is the world’s largest producer, supplying over a third of the world’s coffee—more than 40 million 60-kilogram bags a year. And the largest coffee chain worldwide? The American giant Starbucks, which can be found in locations across the globe, from India to South Africa to Qatar.

Meanwhile, instant coffee was first patented by the owner of a coffee factory in New Zealand in the late 1800s. Brewed coffee beans were dried and packaged as a powder, which could be used to prepare a cup simply by adding hot water. In 1938, using a process called spray-drying, the Swiss multinational food and drink corporation Nestlé created Nescafé, a creamier version that was widely embraced as a better-tasting instant coffee.

If you’ve ever wondered why some people can’t sleep after drinking coffee while others have no problem dozing off after a cup, science has an answer. We all know caffeine is to blame for the coffee jitters, but a growing body of research has shown that certain genes dictate how quickly or slowly our bodies metabolize the stimulant—and therefore how late we can consume it if we want to avoid tossing and turning.

So whether you have it hot or iced; black or with milk; a light, medium or dark roast; prepared at home or purchased on your way to work; at a local café or a chain coffeehouse—you are participating in a tradition that has grown to transcend time and place. Not bad for a humble bean!