The Pros and Cons of Coffee

Why Drink that Magical Cup of Joe?

Coffee; the solution to any tiring day or that edge for concentration. The reason that you cannot sit still in a class or at work. Coffee is one of the wonders of the food world. Definitely one of the seven wonders in my book. But, the taste can take some getting used to; unless you like to eat and drink dirt right from the gecko. 

Coffee has some great pros and some debatable cons. 

Pros (Up for debate)

• Coffee is Caffeinated (It wakes you up and gives your brain that edge.)

• Coffee reduces the risk of Diabetes 

• Coffee Fights Free Radicals (Coffee is actually a plant and like all plant foods, the coffee bean contains more than 1,000 naturally occurring substances called phytochemicals, which may help prevent disease.)

• Coffee improves Memory and Cognition

• An inverse association between regular coffee (caffeine) consumption and the incidence of Parkinson’s disease was found–in other words, caffeine looks to be protective against Parkinson’s disease.

• Coffee prevented motor deficits, normalized brain function, and prevented brain degeneration.

• Coffee improves a sense of well-being, happiness, energy, alertness and sociability.

• Coffee improves aerobic endurance.

Cons (Up for debate)

• It's not that great for the environment. There's a lot of waste with creating coffee, packaging, and distributing coffee. It pretty wasteful. Just think about all those plastic Keurig cups and packaged bags of ground coffee. 

• The caffeine is coffee; and caffeine is addicting. This is good news and bad news. Caffeine has some great uses, but it in so much of what we eat. If it is addictive then it's hard to live without. You don't want to constantly be shelling out money for something that your body cannot bare to live without. 

• There are definitely more cons about coffee, but I like pros. So, you'll have to face the bias. 

How An Ethiopian Goatherd Accidentally Launched One of the World's Most Profitable Industries

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks worldwide. Everyone drinks coffee. It's delicious and has magical energizing effects, so what's not to love? Here in the US, at least, we just go buy our coffee at the grocery store, take it home, combine it by some technique with boiling water and bam, you have a piping hot cup of energizing, dirty water. Coffee drinkers worldwide seem to take the simplicity of it for granted. Today I have conducted some thorough research on the world wide web in hopes of informing you of the history of this weird drink that so many people love so dearly.

It all started in Ethiopia with Kaldi, a goatherd. He discovered that after his goats ate the berries from a tree--presumably the coffee tree-- they couldn't sleep all night. He reported these findings back to the village and soon thereafter, they made a drink from the berries that kept them alert and awake for hours on end. From Ethiopia, coffee traveled east to the Arabian Peninsula.

By the 15th century, Arabians were the first to both cultivate and trade  coffee. It started in Yemen, but spread to Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey by the 16th century. This is also where the original coffee shops of the world got there start. Then called qahveh khaneh, these ancient coffee shops were very similar to today's coffee shops; they were the place to be for drinking coffee, socializing, listening to musics and other performers, playing games like chess, and also keeping updated of daily news. Soon, news of this "wine of Araby" traveled far from Arabia and into Europe.

Coffee soon became widely popular across Europe, but only after its reputation as the "bitter invention of Satan" was cleared by Pope Clement VIII. After this issue was taken care of, coffee houses became very popular in major European cities like they were in the Arab world. People easily forgot about the whole satanic reputation it first had.

By the mid-1600's, coffee was exported to New York and the rest of the new World from there. Tea remained the favored drink of the New World until the Boston Tea Party, when the preference switched to coffee.

Some time later, demand for coffee kept growing, so by the late 18th century, plantations emerged on the islands of Java, Sumatra and Celebes. It was also spread to the island of Martinique by the French, and from Martinique across Central and South America.

Coffee has a very long history, which was slow at first. However, in under 100 years it spread into a global industry, becoming a major economy and one of the most profitable industries by the end of the 18th century. Today, it remains widely popular. Almost everyone drinks this magical, dirty water from this strange bean that an Ethiopian goatherd accidentally stumbled upon so long ago.