Facts About Coffee You May Not Know

By: Lynn Ooi 

It’s the exam period, and you’re pulling all-nighters to survive. The best perk-me-up for that is naturally coffee. But before you assume that you’ve got your coffee knowledge handled, read on, you’ll be surprised to know that those beans have a lot more going on for them.

1.Your daily ‘kopi’ from your local coffee shop is actually brewed with Robusta coffee beans which are roasted together with margarine, maize and sugar. It’s not just plain coffee like the ones you find at your average cafe.

2. There is no Starbucks anywhere in Italy. Even though they’re modeled on Italian coffee joints, their coffee (and coffee variety) is totally different – ask for a ‘frappuccino’ and nobody in Italy knows what it is. Plus, the price of an average Starbucks coffee is S$4-5. In Italy? €1-2 (around S$2-3).

3. Most coffee drinkers around the world (70%) consume Arabica bean coffee, which is milder (and more expensive) than the Robusta which is more bitter and has 50% more caffeine.

4. Coffee is the second most traded commodity on earth, right after oil.

5. A coffee ‘bean’ is actually a coffee ‘berry’ – it starts off as a red berry which is then roasted until it ‘pops’ twice into the bean we recognize, before it can be brewed.

6. Coffee is a good source of fibre – one cup of ‘grande’ sized coffee provides as much fibre as an apple (20% of your recommended daily dose). And of the 3 kinds of coffees tested – espresso, drip and instant – the freeze-dried instant coffee came out tops in fibrous content.

7. Caffeine is considered a drug by the Olympic Committee. Athletes with over 12 micrograms of caffeine per ml of urine may be banned – that works out to 5 cups of coffee.