Coffee Factoids

Published on May 26, 2009

A few interesting coffee related stories, factoids and trivia we hope you’ll enjoy reading, with a cup of your favorite brew of course!

• Coffee is a green bean hidden in the red cherry of the coffee tree.
• Arabica and Robusta trees can produce crops for 20 to 30 years under proper conditions and care.
• Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn
• The first coffee tree in the Western Hemisphere was brought from France to the Island of Martinique in the 1720’s.
• Each year some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide. Most of which is hand picked. It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso!
• Most coffee is transported by ships. Currently there are approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the beans each year.
• 500 billion cups of coffee a years are consumer around the world, half of them at breakfast.
• Coffee provides a livelihood for 25 million people; 100 million more depend on it for survival.
• Lloyds of London was founded in 1688 in Lloyd’s Coffee House, as was the entire English Banking system.
• In 1793 a small group of auctioneers met in a coffee house in New York City; this eventually became the New York Stock Exchange.