Coffee: 2nd Most Traded Commodity in the World

I do like a nice cup of coffee. I blame this partially on the T.V. series Twin Peaks from 1990, which I really must do an article on at some stage. I used to watch FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper really getting into his cup of coffee. He really did enjoy his coffee. In fact, now I think about it, coffee, along with doughnuts, featured heavily in Twin Peaks. Maybe there is some hidden message there. There are hidden messages all through Twin Peaks.

Anyway, back to coffee. The picture above was taken today as I decided to do this trivial and almost pointless blog entry. There I was making a cup of coffee using our new-ish DeLongi Nespresso pod-based coffee machine and I decided to do a quick blog on coffee.

One interesting and little known fact about coffee is that it is the second most traded commodity in the world. The number one traded commodity is oil.

Other semi-interesting things about coffee are:

• It takes about 20 coffee beans to make a "shot" of espresso.
• A normal flat white mug-o-coffee contains two shots.
• A normal cappuccino coffee contains one shot.
• Caffeine, found in coffee, increases the effect of painkillers containing Asprin or Paracetamol.
• It is estimated that 1.5 billion (1,500,000,000) cups of coffee are consumed around the word every day.
• There are only two varieties of the coffee plant: the Arabica and the Robusta.
• Japanese are the third largest consumers of coffee in the world.
• In Japan there is an official Coffee Day. This is the 1st of October.
• Only about a third of coffee drinkers add a sweetener.
• Dark roasted coffees contain less caffeine than medium/light roasted coffees.
• Apparently Beethoven was a coffee lover, to the point that he insisted that exactly 60 beans be used for each cup of coffee.
• The coffee 'bean' is actually a berry.
• There is less caffeine in a two-shot mug-o-coffee than a rounded-teaspoon cup of 'instant' coffee.
• In the last 15 years research is mounting that shows that there is a relationship between caffeine and the onset of alzheimers; in that caffeine appears to delay or stop the onset of alzheimers.
• Caffeine/Coffee causes our dopamine levels to increase which has the effect of enhancing many of our senses including touch, sight, smell, and hearing, as well as those related to sexual gratification.

For those interested there are many more interesting points that can be discovered on the Web.

One kinda-humorous site I came across when researching this brief blog on coffee that is worth a quick visit was The Oatmeal [Ctrl+Click to open this link in a new Tab]

Well that's it for coffee.