Coffee 101

Coffee 101

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has entered into relationships with

 

The Ultimate Perk: Green Mountain coffee is a great way to make employees or customers feel valued. It is also a benefit to you as an employer. Here’s why:

· It’s a wonderful way to compliment your employees and clients. Let them know you appreciate their hard work.

· Green Mountain coffee right in the office means your office benefits from increase productivity as well as morale.

· Employees don’t need to leave the office for that expensive coffee shop down the street.

· Everyone gets to enjoy delicious, high quality green mountain k-cup coffee.

Growing organic coffee isn’t only about not using chemical pesticides and fertilizers…

Organic farmers are reaching back to their traditions: replanting trees to grow coffee under natural shad canopies, enriching the soil with natural compost… and along the way they’re reaping the benefits of a rich and diverse flora and fauna, and greatly improved water quality.

Fair Trade & Organics

When you choose Fair Trade Certified and organic coffees, you improve the quality of life in coffee communities around the world, and get a great cup of coffee to enjoy at home. Now that’s a fair trade.

Coffee History

• Kaldi 8th century - Legend has it that Kaldi the goat herder discovered coffee. There are many versions to this story but the basic story is that Kaldi noticed his goats dancing near a bush with waxy leaves and red berries. Upon closer inspection Kaldi noticed that the goats were eating the berries. When Kaldi tried the berries he too ended up dancing with his goats.
• 1258 Ethiopia to Yemen - Sheikh Omar brought coffee seedlings from Ethiopia to the Port City of Mocha where he planted the coffee. The citizens of Mocha were suspicious of the Omar. They demeaned him to be evil and the cause of the plague that hit Mocha. Omar gave his beans to the citizens and told them the beans would cure them. The citizens were cured and Sheikh Omar became a saint. From Mocha, coffee spread with Islam through the Middle East. Like Kaldi there are other versions of this story.
• Between the 12th and 13th Century - Coffee houses open in Mecca, Constantinople and Damascus.
• 1511 - Governor of Mecca bans coffee.
• 1594 - Pope Clement VIII blesses coffee brought to Italy. Europeans were convinced that coffee was an Arabian substitute for Christian alcohol and that it was unholy. The Pope was given some coffee and instead of banning coffee he blessed it. He said, "We will not let coffee remain the property of Satan. As Christians, our power is greater than Satan's, so we shall make coffee our own."
• 1600 -Muslim pilgrim from India secreted seven seeds out of Arabia and planted them in southern India.
• 1650 - First coffee house opens in Italy.
• 1658 - Coffee cultivation begins in the Dutch colony of Java. Today Java is synonymous with coffee.
• 1685 - European Coffee Houses opened in 1685 with the most famous being Lloyds. Business discussions held in Lloyds was the start of the famous Lloyds of London insurance agency. Also in London the word Tips is coined in a coffee house. Tips is To Insure Prompt Service.
• 1715 - The Dutch presented to King Louis XIV, father of all coffee, a coffee plant. The seedlings from this single plant were spread all over the Caribbean and South and Central America.
• 1720 -Coffee was Introduced to Martinique by a French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, who took the plant from the King's garden. Clieu had to seduce a lady of King Louis court. She gave him three coffee plants. During the journey to Martinique two of the plants died and the third had to be rescued from a jealous passenger who was attacking the plant. Four years later the plant produced two pounds of beans that were given to the most prosperous farmers of the island.
• 1721 - First Coffee House in Berlin.
• 1727 Coffee comes to Brazil - The Dutch and the French were very protective of their coffee plants. In 1727, there was a border dispute between Dutch Guiana and French Guiana. The Brazilian Emperor sent his Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta to resolve the dispute. The Lieutenant resolved the dispute while he was a guest of the French Governor. While resolving the dispute, the Lieutenant had an affair with the Governor's wife. Upon his departure, the wife presented the Lieutenant a bouquet of flowers with a flowering branch of a coffee tree hidden in the bouquet. This became the first Brazilian coffee plant.
• 1730 to 1790 - Coffee was planted in Jamaica, Cuba, Costa Rica and Mexico.
• 1732 Coffee Cantata - A musical piece written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1732 intended as a humorous response to Frederick the Great's efforts to suppress Germans' coffee drinking.
• 1773 - Tea was the beverage of choice in the colonies until King George III imposed a tax that the colonist could not afford. On December 16, 1773 fifty men disguised as Indians boarded ships full of tea and dumped the tea into the Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was planned from The Boston's Green Dragon Coffee House.
• 1777 - Frederick the Great bans coffee for commoners.
• 1800 - First percolator is invented.
• 1822 - The first espresso machine designs are created in France.
• 1825 - Coffee arrives in Hawaii from Brazil.
• 1870 - Wild Robusta found in Africa.
• 1885 - Method of using natural gas and air is invented to roast coffee.
• 1886 - Maxwell House Coffee is named after a hotel in Nashville, TN.
• 1900 - Decaffeination discovered.
• 1905 - The first commercial espresso machine is manufactured in Italy.
• 1908 - In Germany Melitta Benzt invents the first drip filter coffeemaker.
• 1930's & 40s - Classic American diner popularizes coffee.
• 1933 - Dr. Ernest Illy develops the first automatic espresso machine. Dr. Illy today is known as the father of espresso and has received the lifetime coffee achievement reward from the Specialty Coffee Industry.
• 1938 - In trying to solve the Brazilian coffee surplus problem, The Nestlé Company invents instant coffee.
• 1948 - Achilles Gaggia perfects the espresso machine with a piston that creates high pressure extraction to produce a thick layer of crema.
• 1960 - Freeze-dried coffee developed.
• 1960's - Computer age of espresso.
• 1970's - Proliferation of flavored coffee in the US.
• 1970's & 80's - Introductions of specialty coffee shops.
• Today - Coffee is the second largest commodity trade; second only to oil.

The Story of Coffee

We begin our day with a breakfast cup. Share stories and secrets and laughter over a late afternoon latte. We end a perfect meal with dessert and a dark-roasted demitasse. Coffee's heady aroma can transport us... to gramma's kitchen table. To that little French bistro, or that memorable autumn in a quaint Vermont village. For all the tremendous effort required to grow and harvest coffee — and the passion to select, roast and blend the beans just-so — coffee remains one of life's few simple pleasures. This is the story of coffee. Of its rich history, its legend and lore—and its long journey from tree to cup.