James Murphy of the band LCD Soundsystem is to launch his own brand of coffee, but he’s not the first musician to be lured by the beverage

Should we be surprised that LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is trading his beats for beans and planning to launch his own brand of coffee? Not really – the surprise is that someone usually so ahead of the curve would have left it this long. After all, Will Oldham announced his own Bonny Billy Blend of coffee in January (overtones of “chocolate, leather and non-wacky tobaccy”, apparently). And David Lynch, who released his debut album last year, has his signature on bags of coffee sold through his website.

Mr Scruff’s organic English Breakfast tea was a labour of love, involving trips to Assam to choose the leaves. Moby founded a Lower East Side teahouse called Teany (teaNY, get it?), and Billy Corgan wants to follow in his footsteps by opening one in Chicago, making opening teahouses a favourite pastime of annoying bald musicians from the 90s.

Why warm beverages? The obvious answer would be that it’s just an expensive folly, the credit-crunch equivalent of Roger Daltrey’s trout farm. But having tried both Lynch’s coffee and Mr Scruff’s tea, I can confirm that both are fine products, so maybe they are on to something. Are you listening, Lady Gaga? There’s a gap in the chai market you’re not exploiting here.

There is nothing like a cup of coffee that has been freshly roasted, ground and brewed to perfection. There are a growing number of enthusiasts who are roasting their own coffee beans and enjoying the benefits of truly fresh coffee at about one-third of the price of beans from your local coffee shop. A recent article touts that roasting your own coffee is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the USA today. A gift of freshly roasted coffee which you have roasted yourself is sure to be a hit and amaze the receiver of the hand made gift.

The actual roasting of the coffee beans may be the easiest and most fun part. The packaging of your thoughtful gift will be the most challenging as you prepare the package with as much care as you have roasted the coffee. Coffee which will be kept for any length of time should be kept in an airtight container out of sunlight. For the trip from roasting to the airtight container is where the creation of fun ideas comes in. Coffee is traditionally shipped in burlap sacks. You can buy some burlap at a craft store and sew up bags that will be great for packaging.

At the same craft store you can buy pre-cut stencils with flowers, Lions, Elephants, Crocodiles etc and stencil your bags with animals, plants or other landmarks from a country of origin. A Lion on a bag of Kenya or Malawi, Palm tree from Costa Rica, Coffee cherries from Colombia, etc. Plain brown bags work well also and can be decorated in many ways with a coffee theme, re: cups, saucers, coffee pots etc. Another idea, with the ease in which art can be produced and printed on stickers with the help of a computer, is to make your own labels.

YOUR NAME’s special blend or a blend for an event. How about a wedding gift with the bride and groom’s picture and call it the “Perfect Blend”. The possibilities are endless on how you can package the coffee you have roasted yourself with your own signature. All that is needed to roast your own coffee beans at home is green coffee beans, available from a number of sources, an oven, cookie sheet, oven mitt, metal colander and a wooden spoon. Preheat your oven to 500F, spread raw beans evenly one layer deep on a cookie sheet, place on middle rack of preheated oven and watch them roast. In about 8-10 minutes there will be a crackling noise and smoke with a coffee essence. At this point the roast moves quickly and you need to pay close attention.

About 2-3 minutes after the crackling, your coffee beans should be at the shade you like them. Carefully (using the oven mitt) remove the cookie sheet from the oven and pour the beans into the metal colander. Stir the beans with the wooden spoon to help cool quickly. Do this over a sink or outside, as there is chaff that comes off the beans during roasting. And remember; NEVER leave your roasting coffee beans unattended.

Almost any appliance used to pop popcorn can be used to roast coffee beans. The hot air poppers are great, however, you may want to roast outside or in your garage as they blow the chaff out and can be messy. There are a number of manufacturers of home coffee roaster, including several that use a gas grill and rotisserie. The internet is full of sources to purchase raw beans, but you want to make sure that the supplier you use knows their beans and “cups” their coffee before selling it to you. One of the most reputable sources for green coffee beans is U-Roast-Em, Inc., a high quality, no frills supplier with 30 years in the industry. They can be found at www.u-roast-em.com on the web. Many other sources can be found using your favorite search engine. If you’re interested in using a gas grill to roast your beans, check out www.rkdrums.com or www.buzzroasters.com. For electric, countertop-type coffee roasters, visit www.freshbeansinc.com.

Green, raw coffee beans last for years when properly stored. This allows you to build a collection of fine coffees to choose from as well as buy larger amounts of the great coffees and save more money. Keep your bean collection in a cool, dry place out of any direct sun light and they will last until you roast them. As coffee ages it loses acidity and becomes more mellow. Many like the rich mild cup of a coffee that has had a couple years to rest and mellow. More important than the year of the crop is the quality of the bean, the preparation at origin, transportation and warehousing in country of consumption.

If all of these things are done correctly, your green coffee will last for years. Suppliers who know how to cup samples of coffee beans are able to determine if all of these criteria are done correctly before they purchase the beans. Now all you have to worry about is your friends beating down your door to get some more of that wonderful coffee you roasted for them. I guess at that point you just get them started roasting their own, they’ll be forever grateful.

How many different names have you run across for different types of coffee roasts? Light, Medium, Dark? Espresso? Continental? Vienna, French, Italian, Spanish? City? Full-City? C’mon, who’s thinking up these things?

Well, the dark secret (pardon the pun) of the coffee industry is that, well, there really isn’t full agreement on which roast is which. So basically, we all pretty much get to hunt around, try different coffees from different sources and pick the one(s) we like. In this article, I’ll try to use the standard nomenclature, and map it to the color and texture anyone can judge for himself.-The roasting adventure begins with green coffee beans.

These are stored at room temperatures, at 12-15% moisture content. Roasting is done at temperatures of up to 450+ degrees F. Duration and temperature determine the roast.-A coffee bean will take on heat until the internal temperature of the bean reaches approximately 212-240 deg F. At this point, the outer layer of the bean(s) will discolor, turning a nice cinnamon color. Here, steam will start being released from the bean.-As the bean heats up further (approx 250-300 degrees F, again depending on the variety), the external membrane of the bean will dry up and start separating from the bean itself. At approximately 350 degrees F, the continuing heating of the bean forces a ‘first crack.’

This cracking occurs as moisture within is released through the existing seam in the bean. This essentially blows this small crack open, forcing the separation of the remaining bean ‘chaff’.-Coffee at this stage is a light brown color; entering the ‘light City Roast’ stage. City Roast is usually achieved at a slightly higher temperature (above 370 deg F), where the sugars within the bean start melting or ‘carmelizing’. This gives the distinctive ‘coffee brown’ color. City Roasts are usually stopped around 400 deg. or so. At this point, the sugars are not fully carmelized, and flavor of the beans at this stage are very much determined by their origin; not by the degree of roast.

The ‘Full City Roast’ stage occurs at higher temperatures, just as the bean reaches the ‘second crack’ stage. This stage happens at different temperatures for different beans based on variety. The second crack comes as the temperatures of the bean reach the point where the cellular composition of the bean starts breaking down. To obtain the Full City roast, roasting is stopped just at the point where this second crack starts (approx 425-435 deg F.) At this point the bean is darker brown, but ‘dry’ looking, as the oils of the bean have not started to emerge through the molecular breakdown of the bean.-Going into the second crack, we reach the ‘Vienna’, ‘Continental’, ‘French’ and/or ‘Italian’ roast stages.

These are sometimes also referred to as “Espresso Roast”, although strictly speaking, there’s no such thing. Italian espresso blends actually vary – northern blends are typically roasted to the ‘Vienna’ stage, well into the second crack, where the sugars within the bean are almost fully carmelized and many beans within the roast will appear dark brown with hints of fissures. Espresso blends in southern Italy are usually roasted into the “French Roast” stage, where almost all of the beans will be about one shade removed from black and oils will start emerging from some beans. -Beyond this point, beans will start releasing oils and their soluble compounds – mainly as a lot of smoke; but the beans will be left quite dark with a very oily sheen. Assuming they have not fully burnt yet, this can be specified as “Italian Roast”. I’ve observed different temperatures (within the roaster) for all of these stages depending on the bean variety – so as my roasts reach the second crack, I tend to trust my eyes and ears more than I trust my probe thermometer.

One interesting note of coffee roasting is that as beans reach into the second crack, they tend to lose any distinctive varietal flavors. Is this a bad thing? Well, for some, perhaps… I for one will mutter a bit if my Ethiopian Yirgacheffe goes past Full City and I lose the distinctive flavor notes; and in my early roasting career I almost cried as a batch of prized Puerto Rican select went unheeded into the Italian Roast realm before I managed to get back to it. But… some varieties do better at the distinctive French Roast stage. De gustibus non disputandum est – it just doesn’t pay to dispute the results in the cup!-And that is coffee roasting. I have seen a fair amount of advertising of ‘slow-roasted’ or ‘deep-roasted’ coffee, which always gets me to wondering.

I suppose if you roast a huge amount of beans in a low-temperature environment… why, yes, that would in fact be a slow process! Certainly for a roaster to get beans to a certain roast point and no further, it does pay to be precise and not rapidly incinerate his product. But I can’t say I’d want to purposely take any longer than necessary to do so. -As for ‘deep’ roasting? Hmm. Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of ‘shallow’ roasting; but whatever it is, ‘deep roast’ must be the opposite! Seriously, the only ‘trick of the trade’ that I can think of runs counter to the notion of holding beans at any given temperature… and that is, once a batch reaches the desired point, get it out of the roaster and cool it down FAST!

As described above, the quality of a roast depends on those sugars and soluble materials within the bean getting ‘cooked’ very specifically. Keeping the beans near additional heat (yes, even other beans nearby, releasing their own heat energy) will continue to cook them.-To some extent this is unavoidable, so the experienced roaster will compensate for this by knowing his roasting environment; and ideally provide a cooling location where beans can cool as rapidly as possible by the flow of cool (i.e., room temperature) air over the freshly-roasted beans. This allows them to ‘coast’ into their final characteristic color and taste.

If you haven’t tried coffee ice cream, you have missed one of the most delicious and delightful uses to which this wondrous bean can be put. If you thought coffee was only a hot drink for perking yourself up, then you need to think again. Coffee is a very versatile thing, and lends itself equally well to drinks and to desserts, and even has medicinal uses.

Worldwide, coffee is one the most popular flavors for ice cream. All the top-selling ice cream brands sell the flavor, and now you can enjoy some without running to your nearest Baskin-Robbins outlet! Make some coffee ice cream in your home – here’s how. First, be sure to select quality coffee beans only, because any compromise on this is likely to ruin the flavor of your coffee ice cream. Arabica beans are preferred over Robusta. Take about half a cup and roast it in the microwave at 400deg Fahrenheit for 10 minutes or so. Then crush them fine and store them in an airtight container. Add about two cups of milk to two cups of heavy cream, and mix in the crushed beans. Pour the mixture in a saucepan over the fire and bring it to just under a boil, stirring all the while.

Then take it off the fire and wait for an hour or so, while it cools and the coffee spreads its flavor throughout. Coffee ice cream must be evenly flavored, and concentrations of coffee in particular spots can only harm the overall effect. Collect the yolks of 8 eggs, and add slightly less than a cup of sugar to them. Pour the milk-and-cream mixture into the eggs-and-sugar, and whisk thoroughly till the whole thing is quite blended together.

Put the new mixture into the saucepan and cook it over a medium heat. You should use a wooden spoon to stir it constantly, because metal can react and destroy the flavor of coffee ice cream. You’ll know it’s done when the broth thickens slightly, and begins to coat the backside of the wooden spoon. Take it off the fire and pass it through a fine-meshed strainer, to take out the coarser coffee bean remnants and possible eggshell bits. Pour the custard-like stuff into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Adding some home-made coffee brittles at this point would be a nice touch, both as garnish and flavoring agent. You can easily make some with espresso beans, sugar and butter, but that is the subject of another article. If you intend to do this, then don’t wait till the coffee ice cream is totally frozen, but pour it semi-soft into another container and stir the brittles in. Then use plastic wrap to cover it tightly, before freezing. The leftover brittles, if any, would be a nice touch if sprinkled on top before serving. These measures yield about a litre of coffee ice cream; if you need more, adjust according to ratio.

There used to be three choices for coffee lovers at their local supermarket: Folgers, Maxwell House, or the store brand. But in today’s world of Starbucks and the countless imitators it has spawned, how do you tell the difference between truly gourmet coffee and overpriced coffee barely above the store brand standard? How do you pick between all the different exotic flavors? How do you keep your coffee fresh once you’ve bought it? Below are some tips to help you brew that perfect cup.

1. First, if you’re going to pick what you like, you have to know what you like. It sounds obvious, but many coffee drinkers don’t know what “dark,” “full-bodied,” “nutty,” etc. actually taste like.

2. Speaking of what you like, did you know that the coffees that have “European names” (ie, “French Roast”) has nothing to do with the country of origin but the coffee style? French Roast coffee is generally bittersweet; Italian Roast is even darker and more bitter. Not surprisingly, American Roast is considerably less dark and less bitter. Many people enjoy darker roasts, but the darker the roast, the less you will enjoy the subtle flavors.

3. By contrast, coffees with “non-European” names are from that country. So Sumatra coffee, for example, is from the island of Sumatra, and so forth. The coffees from different areas all have slightly different flavors based on the different soil types (level of acidity and other factors).

4. Which is better œ whole, or ground? A better question to ask is: How fresh is this coffee? Whether it is ground or not makes less difference than how fresh the coffee is. Choose a coffee (whole or ground) packaged in an airtight container. Porous containers, such as paper bags, will allow coffee to go stale quickly. Once you open that container, your coffee starts to lose its freshness. This means if you’re buying coffee in bulk but you’re only drinking a cup per day, your coffee will be flavorless in six months’ time.

5. If you’re picking out whole beans at your local market, stay away from beans that are split, broken, or cracked

6. And what about decaffeinated coffee? Can you still enjoy the same flavor and body as its caffeinated cousin? Although some restaurants serve a weak cup of decaf this is not a result of the coffee but of improper brewing. Allowing the coffee to sit out for a long time on the burner also causes it to become bitter and flat. By brewing a decaf cup in the proper way and by consuming it before it turns bitter, you can enjoy your cup of joe without the caffeine side effects.

7. And by the way, before you brew that perfect cup of gourmet coffee, make sure your coffee equipment is clean! There’s nothing worse than the residue of old coffee smell mixing in with your newly bought gourmet coffee. This is true for your coffee grinder as well as for your coffee maker and especially if you enjoy testing different flavored coffees. If you do not clean your equipment regularly, your “hazelnut” coffee might just taste a lot like the “vanilla” coffee you had last week.

Coffee tastes great by itself, but for an extra special taste sensation, try gourmet flavored coffee. There are many flavoring substances which can be added to coffee to give your daily cup of Java an out of the ordinary flavor experience.

Some flavors are natural enhancers that go together with coffee like bees and honey. Rum and chocolate have been added to coffee for almost as long as coffee has been produced. Some of the newest gourmet flavored coffee includes vanilla, macadamia, and even peanut butter!

Not all these flavors are everyone’s “cup of tea”, but the taste sensations of gourmet flavored coffee give you a new outlook on Java juice. Try out some of these special flavors — you may find a favorite that you always come back to.

Just look at some of these types of gourmet flavored coffee — apricot cream, Black Forest cake, Cafe Napoleon, chocolate raspberry, Jamaican rum, Southern pecan and vanilla hazelnut. The names by themselves makes your mouth water.

Coffee is flavored by adding flavoring substances after it is roasted. The flavoring substances are highly concentrated and only a small amount is used in gourmet flavored coffee. Be careful when buying flavored coffee — be sure to buy from a reputable company. Some companies use the flavoring process to hide the taste of inferior quality coffee.

The flavoring used in gourmet flavored coffee loses its strength when exposed to air. Always keep the coffee beans in a tightly sealed container for maximum flavor. For the best cup of coffee, grind the beans right before brewing.

You can make your own special blends by combining various gourmet flavored coffee. Adding a touch of flavored coffee to your regular coffee beans adds a special taste that is uniquely yours. The sky is the limit! You can have a new flavor of coffee every day!

-India produces two fine coffees, but even among coffee devotees at least in America they remain relatively unknown and un-drunk. That’s too bad. They deserve to be extolled for the romance attached to them, if nothing else; happily, they also taste pretty good as well.-According to legend, coffee was discovered in Ethiopia. The first big coffee craze, though, occurred in Arabia, where by the 13th century Muslims were brewing and drinking huge quantities of it. Travelers from Arabia took the beans with them wherever they went beans deliberately made infertile, allegedly, by parching or boiling. Because of this strict export control policy, it is claimed that no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 17th century.

-Enter (or exit, as the case may be) one Baba Budan one of the great heroes in the history of coffee, in my opinion. Wrapping up a pilgrimage to Arabia from his native land of India, Budan left Mecca with several fertile coffee beans strapped to his belly. From those beans sprouted the first coffee trees to be grown in India, as well as an agricultural industry that could no longer be contained to one small part of the world.-For romance, though, nothing in the world of coffee, to my mind, beats the story of Monsooned Malabar, one of the two coffees for which India is known today.

-The British began the modern commercial cultivation of coffee on the hills of southern India, along the Malabar coast, a century-and-a-half ago. The coffee grown there was packed raw into the holds of wooden ships and sent on a six-month trip, around the Cape of Good Hope, to the coffee houses and shops of Europe. On such a long journey, and in such vessels, the beans inevitably became exposed to almost constant humidity. That humidity turned the beans pale gold and leached them of their acidity. When the coffee finally reached its destination it had been considerably mellowed and Europeans loved it.-Progress eventually intervened, though, to temporarily deny the coffee drinkers of Europe their beloved aged Indian bean. The opening of the Suez Canal made the trip from the Malabar Coast much shorter. And, the coffee began to be shipped in modern steel vessels. These developments conspired to deprive the coffee beans of the prolonged exposure to humidity which had been responsible for their distinctive flavor

-To meet the demand for the old style of coffee from Malabar, some growers hit on a simple but ingenious solution. They would duplicate the moist conditions of the old sea voyage by exposing their beans to the Indian monsoon. Thus, Monsooned Malabar.-The monsooning process is a long one and actually fairly labor intensive. First, the coffee to be monsooned is stored in a special warehouse to await the monsoon season. When the time comes, the sides of the warehouse are opened, allowing the wet monsoon winds to circulate around the beans. The beans may also be raked or hand-turned on the floor of the warehouse to assist in the process. Monsooning takes 12 to 16 weeks. During this time the beans swell to twice their picked size and turn that signature pale golden color

-The taste of Monsooned Malabar coffee is usually described in terms such as musty, earthy, corky and woody. Some writers have called it “mellow” yet “aggressive” at the same time! All agree that it has a polarizing quality you’ll either adore it or detest it. Maybe I just haven’t had enough cups yet to really judge, but in my opinion the taste is not as idiosyncratic as all that. Musty, maybe, put not off-puttingly so. I think that many people would enjoy it, not just those of us who enjoy seeking out the more unusual offerings of the coffee world. And again, for my part, the fascinating story behind this particular coffee makes up for any deficiency in the cup.-Unfortunately, you still can’t find Monsooned Malabar just anywhere. Ordering it by mail is still the best bet for most of us. Oddly enough, until very recently it was easier to acquire green (unroasted) Malabar coffee beans than roasted ones. My first cup came from beans that I roasted at home, myself, in a popcorn popper. There are many resources on the Web for anyone interested in getting into home coffee roasting, an enjoyable hobby in its own right.-There are a few coffee sellers on the Web now who offer roasted Monsooned Malabar and similarly exotic or hard-to-find beans. In the case of Malabar (as opposed, say, to geunine Kona or Jamaican Blue Mountain), the price actually compares quite favorably with more mundane or “normal” coffeess

If you like traveling the world in a coffee cup and especially if you’d like to drink something with a bit of romance to it you owe it to yourself to get your hands on some Monsooned Malabar. By the way, if you drink a lot of espresso, you might have had some Malabar coffee without knowing; some expresso producers include it in their so-called exotic blends.-India’s other major coffee variety comes from the Mysore region (now the state of Karnakata). Called Indian Mysore, Mysore Nuggets, Mysore Straight, or simply Mysore, it makes a rich and spicy cup of coffee that at its best may be termed “sweet” a word you would never hear applied to Monsooned Malabar. Interestingly enough, though, Mysore coffee also gets its unique taste from being exposed to the monsoon wind and rain, which pump up the beans with moisture and smooth out their flavor. The difference may be simply that in the case of the Malabar, the monsoon exposure is purposely carried to an extreme.-Mysore coffee is also becoming easier to find in the United States, although most people will still have to seek out a reliable seller on the Web. It’s definitely worth finding and trying some. According to some connoisseurs, Indian Mysore at its best is among the finest coffees produced anywhere.

Coffee is a drink produced from the coffee grains. It is stimulating, because it contains caffeine. The use of the drink of the coffee had its origin in Kaffa, Abyssinia, today Ethiopia, when a shepherd called Kaldi observed that his goats were smarter and hopping around when eating the leaves and fruits of the coffee tree. He tried the fruits himself and he felt happier and with bigger vivacity. A monk of the region discovered this and started to use an infusion of the fruits to resist sleeping during his prayers.

The effect of the drink was spread, and in the16th century coffee was used in the east, being toasted for the first time in Persia. The coffee had enemies even between the Arabs who considered that the effects of the drink of coffee were against the laws of the Prophet Mahmed. However, as soon as the coffee won these obstacles, even the Arabian doctors adhered to the drink to help the digestion, to cheer the spirit and to stay awake, according to writers of that time.

In Arabia, the infusion of the coffee received the name of “Kahwah” or “Cahue”, meaning in Arab “force”. The classification – Arabian Coffea was given by the scholar Lineu.

In 1675, the coffee was taken to Turkey and Italy, but the drink considered Arabian was forbidden to the Christians and it only was allowed after the Pope Clement VIII tried it.

In its travel around the world, the coffee arrived Java later, reaching Holland and, thanks to the dynamism of the Dutch maritime commerce executed by the company of Occidental India, the coffee was introduced in the new world, spreading itself through the Guyanas, Martinique, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico and Cuba.

The commercial establishments in Europe made solid the use of the drink of the coffee, and diverse houses of coffee had been world-wide known, as “Virginia Coffea House”, in London, and the “Coffee of La Agence” in Paris, where famous names as Rousseau, Voltaire, Richelieu and Diderot congregated.

Here goes a tip: if you’re a guy, don’t think that you are the only one that is going to be more vivacious and have more energy when you take a cup of coffee. Beyond you – believe it or not – your spermatozoa will obtain the same effects. This is what a Brazilian urologist concluded after coordinating a research, which turned international notice after being presented by him in a conference in San Antonio, United States. The results show that the men who take at least one cup of coffee on a daily basis present greater movement of the sperm. In other words, the spermatozoa have more energy and are quicker, increasing the possibility of making a woman pregnant. “The caffeine can increase the use of energy of the sperm, as if it were a stimulant. It is as if the spermatozoon took an energetic”, explains the researcher.

To affirm this, the semen of 750 fertile men and with active sexual life was tested by him. “Who takes coffee does not produce more sperm. The only alteration observed was in its quality of movement, independently of the amount of coffee ingested daily”, explains the urologist. In numbers, between the men who take coffee, 67% of the spermatozoa had mobility enough to arrive at the ovule, against 54% that did not take it. Now, the doctor will test men with fertility problems. “Depending on the results, we can suggest to the patient with little movement of the spermatozoa to take a cup of coffee”.

With English Tea being a very familiar term, English coffee may seem as contrary a term as Arctic bananas; however, England’s impact on the coffee trade and the world of business is undeniable. The history of English coffee began in 1650 at Oxford University when a Lebanese immigrant opened the first coffeehouse on campus.

Initially, coffee was seen as novelty and a snake oil, if you will, as the proprietor touted many incredible medical claims. His English coffee was said to aid in digestion, cure headaches, coughs, dropsy, gout, scurvy and even prevent miscarriages. About the only claim that was accurate was that English coffee prevented drowsiness.

By 1700, however, coffee had become a very popular beverage and there were more than two thousand coffeehouses in London. Coffeehouses occupied more retail space and paid more rent than any other trade. They came to be known as Penny Universities, because for the price of a cup of coffee, one penny, a person could sit for hours and engage in stimulating conversation with educated people.

Each coffeehouse specialized in a different clientele. In one, physicians could be consulted. Other’s catered to lawyers, actors, army officers, or clergy. English coffee became the beverage of business and one coffeehouse in particular grew into one of the worlds largest and most well known companies. Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse catered primarily to seafarers and merchants and he regularly prepared “ships’ lists” for underwriters who met there to offer insurance to the ship captains. And so began Lloyd’s of London, the famous insurance company.

Prior to the popularity of English coffee, beer, or ale, was the morning beverage of choice among the working class. The pubs and taverns were filled early in the morning with workers who stopped in for a few pints of camaraderie before heading off to the factories and shops around London.

One English writer wrote in 1624, “They flock to the taverns to dizzy their brains and a productionless society is the result.” Fifty years later another writer credited English coffee with stimulating the economy as he wrote, “Coffee drinking hath caused a greater sobriety than has ever been seen in the business of London.”

By the late 18th century the buzz of English coffee subsided and tea became the preferred British drink, due much in part to the outcry of women, who were excluded from the all-male society of the coffeehouse and complained loudly. A group of angry coffeehouse widows filed a petition with the English government to ban coffee on the grounds that their men were never at home and their duties as husband and father were being neglected. English coffee was not banned but the outcry did have repercussions on the coffeehouse business and men returned to the taverns instead.

About 850 A.D it is said that a lone shepherd and his flock came across a strange and mysterious plant growing upon a secluded and forgotten hillside. Before he could stop them some of his herd had began to gnaw away at this unusual berry. After about fifteen minutes or so the herder started to notice that his sheep were behaving in an odd manner. Not only were they unusually alert but they also appeared to be extremely hyperactive. Now being a little weary and extremely tired the shepherd decided to try the berries and see if the end results would be the same for him as they had been for his flock. To his pleasant surprise the shepherd began to feel wide awake and he too became very alert. After a few hours had passed along came a wandering monk who, after being informed of the plants amazing qualities proceeded to scold the poor shepherd and lecture him on his foolish indulgence. After he had finished telling the shepherd just what a sinner he had been the monk set upon his journey but not before he had added a little something to his backpack and supplies.

Back at the monastery the monks decided to try this new and exciting substance. Soon the endless hours of praying were endured with the greatest of ease. Coffee, the drink had been revealed to the world. Its widespread use then took a grip in the Ethiopian lands before then migrating on to the Arabian outlands. Here it was to be held for many years as a sacred substance but was eventually to be unlawfully exported by a merchant called Baba Budan. Word of its qualities were soon to spread and within a few years coffee was to emerge as one of the most valued commodities of all time. Now would you believe that each year we drink an amazing four billion cups and there are those among us who would cry at the thought of starting their day without it.

Although coffee is mainly known as a sleep suppressant there are those who consider coffee to have many health benefits. It is thought that people who suffer from asthma and partake of the beverage have at least 25% less symptoms which may be due to a substance in coffee called theophylline. This is known as a bronchodilator and quite simply it is thought to help those who suffer with the disease to breath with a little more ease. Drinking coffee on a daily basis is also thought to help lower your chances of developing colon cancer by a figure also in the region of about 25%. This may be due to the fact that coffee helps to keep you regular. Coffee can do more than just help you get through your day!

Aside from the benefits that have been mentioned above, it has to be said that simply enjoying coffee as a beverage is a delight that will never be easily surpassed. The unbelievable thing is that most people have no idea of the different tastes and delights that this monarch of all drinks has to offer. One of the fastest growing trends of the past few years has to be the rising popularity of obtaining coffee via the internet. Never before has it been so easy to sample such a huge variety of blends, tastes and aromas, and all at the click of a mouse. I order coffee frequently through the internet and I always make a point to record the country, blend and from whom I purchased.

Well now that you know the tale of the mystical beans I hope that if in the future you are considering visiting your local coffee shop you recall the story of the lowly shepherd and think about just what you might be drinking were he not to have wandered onto that bleak and lonely hillside. Why not take advantage of the internet and try the many different varieties and blends available. Not only will you impress your tastebuds, your friends will be grateful as well.