BEAN THERE, DOING THAT. A short pull on coffee.

I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte 

Adam did not have an espresso before he ate his apple, but his descendants have drunk coffee for centuries. Last year, world coffee production was 10.26 million tonnes, the most ever. That’s a lot of Ristrettos, Macchiatos and Cappuccinos, with or without apples.

The genus Coffea is native to tropical Eastern Africa (Ethiopia and Sudan) and the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius and Reunion. It’s travelled way beyond its botanical homeland. The two most commonly grown coffee plants are C. arabica and C. robusta, which are now grown in more than 70 nations. Since 2018, Brazil has been the world’s leading grower and exporter of coffee, followed by Viet Nam (who’d of guessed), Columbia and Indonesia. Hawaii produces the only commercially-grown coffee in the US, principally its well-known Kona variety. It produces just 3,900 tonnes per year according to the latest information.

Coffee has a mysterious dark color, it’s slightly bitter, and has a stimulating effect in most people, primarily due to its caffeine content. Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug, thanks in large part to coffee and tea consumption. Black tea has roughly one-half the caffeine as coffee. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, it’s legal. Hoorah.

Caffeine is classified by the US Food and Drug Administration as “generally recognized as safe.” Espresso has almost three times the caffeine as a drip-prepared coffee per ounce, and almost four times as much as a brewed coffee. Medical specialists think the half-life of caffeine’s effect in an adult body is 5-6 hours.

It can be toxic, however. Toxic doses of caffeine begin when consuming over 10 grams per day. Typical caffeine levels in coffee range from 80 to as high as 175mg, based on what beans are used and how it’s prepared. Reaching that toxic level would require daily consumption of roughly 50 to 100 cups of coffee. Whoa, Nellie. If you consume anywhere near this amount of coffee, you very likely have “other issues.” Let’s get back to coffee.

Early on, coffee seeds (what we call beans) were taken from its native soils to Yemen via traders. By the middle of the 15th century Yemeni Sufis were drinking coffee, more or less as we know it today, to stay awake during their religious rituals. By the 16th century, the drink had reached Persia, Turkey and North Africa – then all part of the Ottoman Empire. Soon afterwards it spread to Europe and beyond.

Historically, coffee-drinking has been banned for a time in several places, sometimes on religious grounds (no pun intended, honestly). Religious authorities in Mecca forbad coffee in 1511, saying it stimulated nasty radical thinking. In 16th century Italy Catholic clergy pressed the Pope to ban it as a “Muslim drink” and have it labelled “Satanic.” It wasn’t to be: After tasting the new beverage, Pope Clement VIII pronounced it delicious. Based on this papal sanctification, coffeehouses sprang up throughout Italy. Sweden’s King Gustav III prohibited coffee-drinking and banned “coffee paraphernalia” (cups and dishes) in 1746. Apparently, Swedes had their cups of Joe on the sly anyway. Coffee was simply stronger than Kings, religion and other coffee-fearing authorities.

Coffeehouses were established and soon became a popular part of a town’s culture. The first coffeehouse in Constantinople – then the capitol of the Ottoman Empire – was opened in 1475 by traders from Damascus. Coffee was introduced in Italy by 1600, via the long-flourishing trade between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The first Venetian (and European) coffeehouse opened its doors in 1645.

From Venice coffee rapidly seeped into the rest of Europe and eventually the Americas and beyond. The first coffeehouse in England was established in Oxford in 1650, and in America in Boston in 1676. British coffeehouses were called “penny universities,” where a patron with a single penny could buy a coffee and often enjoy participating in stimulating, educational(?) conversations. One such coffeehouse, the Green Dragon in Boston, was where John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere planned their American rebellion. Such coffeehouses usually were more than mere arabica, they also served tea and beer.

The chart below shows how consumers in the 14 listed countries choose between purchasing and drinking coffee or tea. The share of “coffee folk” is highest in Brazil and Ecuador – an impressive 94.7% – which are two of the largest coffee bean producers. Unsurprisingly, the United Kingdom (UK) and its now long-ago colony India have the highest shares of tea-sipping customers of these nations. India is the second-largest tea producer in the world, behind China. US consumers prefer coffee to tea by a three-to-one margin; in Italy coffee preference is closer to four-to-one. Italians consume an estimated 14 billion morning espressos each year, about 275 per adult. Canadian and Australian consumers’ coffee-to-tea preference is much more balanced. 

Consumers’ Preference by Country

Country	Coffee Folk	Tea Sippers
Brazil	94.7%	5.3%
Ecuador	94.7%	5.3%
Denmark	92.2%	7.8%
Mexico	89.7%	10.3%
Finland	88.8%	11.2%
Italy	78.4%	21.6%
United States	75.4%	24.6%
Switzerland	69.7%	30.3%
Canada	57.7%	42.3%
Australia	49.7%	50.3%
Japan	37.4%	62.6%
Chile	35.3%	64.7%
UK	29.1%	70.9%
India	11.0%	89.0%
Source:	CafeDeColumbia

Which country drinks the utmost coffee? On a per-capita basis, Nordic nations consume the most perhaps due to those very long, very cold, dark winter nights. These countries account for five of the top 10 per-capita coffee-consuming countries. Finland, at 26 lb. per person per year, is the largest consumer (double that of Brazil, nearly 3x the US), closely followed by Norway, Iceland and then Sweden. The US ranks 25th (9¼ lb.); Canada is 10th highest.

Onward to Espresso. Espresso is a method of brewing coffee, by which pressurized water is passed through a compacted "puck" of fine coffee grounds. It doesn’t refer to any specific bean type. Many different coffee blends – like Italian Roast, Espresso Forte, Arabian Mocha-Java and Big Bang – can be used to make a fine cup of espresso.

An espresso machine heats the water to just-below boiling (195°F - 205°F), pressurizes it to 9-10 atmospheres and pushes the water through the grounds. The coffee grind should allow the brew time to be 20-30 seconds. When finished, your cup of espresso should look something like the picture here. Notice the crema, the bubbly foam at the top of the coffee. If it’s the crema de la crema, it should be no more than ten percent of the espresso shot. Espresso should be drunk swiftly, before its aromatic elements disperse into the ether.

Espresso is a relatively recent innovation in coffee-making. After all, people have been drinking coffee for over 500 years. The first machine for making espresso was built in 1884 by Angelo Moriondo of Turin, Italy. But for some time the espresso-making process remained laborious and finicky, hence not much was really drunk. The initial, modern steam-less espresso machine was created in 1938 by Achille Gaggia, an Italian barista. This machine is a direct predecessor of today’s espresso machines. In 1945 Gaggia refined his original design with a manual espresso-maker that used a lever, pulled down by the operator, to pressurize the hot water and push it through the grounds. This machine is where “pulling a shot” originated. The increased pressure facilitated by his design gave the espresso world its crema. Thank you, Achille.

If espresso is at one end of the coffee scale, the other end is unlamented instant coffee. Instant coffee was invented in 1907. Because of the ease of making it – all it took was a spoon, heated water and a cup – instant coffee rapidly gained in popularity in the post-WWWI period. Nescafé was the instant coffee market leader. My parents both drank Nescafé at breakfast when I was young. I remember the jar of instant coffee next to the stove in our kitchen. I don’t remember any real coffee aroma.

The picture below shows a magnificent, early, non-automated, steam espresso machine. This device is a 1910 two group tipo Extra Model from Turin, Italy. It’s part of the Collezione Enrico Maltoni, near Milan, which has the world’s largest collection of impressive, vintage espresso machines. They don’t make them like that anymore.

     After the end of WWII, an espresso-craze unfolded across Europe and the US. In the Italian-intense North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco the Caffè Trieste opened in 1956. Beat Generation writers including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac, along with non-bards, have enjoyed the Trieste’s espresso bar. It became the cognoscenti’s place to be; the espresso gave it an international flavor. Soon espresso and its relatives like macchiatos, cappuccinos, lattés and an occasional sospeso began dotting urban country sides across the US. 

The first Peet's Coffee & Tea store opened in 1966 in Berkeley, right where I regularly buy their #4 grind Italian Roast for my Gaggia. Peets founder Alfred Peet concentrated on roasting coffee with fresher, higher-quality C. arabica beans than was usual. Peets was the original “craft coffeeshop.” Peets roasts over one million pounds of coffee a week. He was a trainer and initial supplier to the founders of Starbucks. Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971. Fifteen years later Starbucks added an espresso bar to one of its stores. It now has 25,000 stores in 75 nations, including Italy.

Berkeley and places beyond are imbued with quality coffee culture. Peets, Starbucks and now other craft coffeehouses are a prominent reason for this culinary facet of modern culture. Edward Abbey clearly never had the pleasure of drinking Peets coffee. That was his misfortune; because otherwise he wouldn’t have stated, “Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.” Che peccato.