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Check out our new
"Show Your Peace Coffee
Pride" photo contest in this issue of Fair
Grounds.
Past
Coffee Knowledge questions and answers:
Q.
In the past three centuries, what percentage of all people living in the western world have switched from tea to coffee?
A. 50%
B. 70%
C. 90%
A.
C.
90%
Q. How many hand-picked Arabica coffee cherries does
it take to make ONE roasted pound of coffee?
a.
2,000
b. 3,000
c. 4,000
A.
A.
2000
In
August 2005, instead of a
trivia question we offered a crossword puzzle. Click
here for the puzzle and clues.
Q. In what year did Johann
Sebastian Bach compose his Coffee Cantata?A.
1732
B. 1765
C.
1701
A.
A.
1732. This piece of music was partly an ode to
coffee and partly a challenge to the movement in
Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee (as
it was thought to make women sterile). The cantata
includes the aria, "Ah! How sweet coffee
taste! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter
far than muscatel wine! I must have my
coffee."
Q. When
was the first commercial espresso machine
manufactured in Italy?A.
1892
B. 1921
C.
1905
A.
C.
1905
Q. According
to coffee lore, who is responsible for the spread
of coffee’s popularity in the early 1600s?A.
Queen
Elizabeth I
B. Pope
Clement VIII
C.
King Louis XII of France
A.
B.
Coffee afficionados claim that the spread of
coffee's popularity in the early 1600's is due to
the influence of Pope Clement VIII (1536–1605,
pope 1592–1605). Upon being pressured by his
advisers to declare coffee to be a drink of the
devil because of its popularity among Muslims in
the middle east, he instead declared that,
"This devil's drink is so good ... we should
cheat the devil by baptizing it."
Q. What
explorer is believed to have introduced coffee to
North America?A.
Amerigo Vespucci
B. Captain
John Smith
C.
Christopher Columbus
A.
B.
The majority of evidence credits Captain John
Smith, the founder of Jamestown, with introducing
the bitter invention of Satan to New World in the
early 1600s. It was not until after the colonists
revolted against the heavy tea taxes, known as the
Boston Tea Party in 1773, that coffee use became
more widespread then tea.
Q. Within how many miles of the equator is all coffee grown?
A.
2500 miles
B. 2000 miles
C. 1000 miles
A.
The answer is C.
All coffee is
grown within 1,000 miles of the equator, from the
Tropic of Cancer in the north, to the Tropic of
Capricorn in the south.
Q.
In comparison to lighter roasted coffee, do darker
roasted beans contain:
A.
more caffeine and more acidity
B. less
caffeine and less acidity
C. more
caffeine and less acidity
A.
The answer is B.
The darker the roast, the less caffeine and
acidity a coffee will possess. Much of the
caffeine of a coffee is dissipated up the chimney
of the roaster.
Q.
As
the coffee plant develops white blossoms,
approximately what percentage of these flowers
produce a mature bean?
A.
one quarter
B. one half
C. three-quarters
A.
Correct
answer A. Only
one quarter of all the blooms of most coffee
plants actually mature into harvestable green
coffee cherries.
Q.
The
word "tip" is popularly thought to date
back to the old English coffeehouses.
Conspicuously placed brass boxes etched with a
three-word inscription, encouraged customers to
pay for efficient service. The resulting acronym,
TIP, has become a byword.
What
are the three words that were etched on the boxes?
A.
To
Insure Promptness.
Q.
What percentage of the caffeine consumed in the United States comes from coffee?
A. 50%
B. 35%
C. 75%
D. 90%
A.
A.
75%
Q.
What
coffee-producing country produced a scented
postage stamp in 2001 to promote its coffee?
A.
Brazil
B. Colombia
C. The United States
A.
A.
Brazil. The scent on the stamp is supposed to last
from three to five years.
Q.
What percent
of the world’s vanilla bean used for ice cream
is grown in Madagascar?
A.
20%
B. 50%
C. 60%
D. 80%
A.
D. 80% of the world’s vanilla bean
used for ice cream in grown in Madagascar
Q.
What
are the ingredients of the traditional Ethiopian
"powerbar"?
A.
The
ingredients of the traditional Ethiopian "powerbar"
are butter, teft flour and (of course) coffee.
Q.
How
much seafood does the average American consume per
year?
A)
30 pounds
B) 15 pounds
C) 50 pounds
A.
The
correct answer is C.
Americans eat an average of 50 pounds of seafood
annually
Q.
Brazil
and Colombia combined produce what percentage of
the world's coffee?
A.
5%
B. 25%
C. 45%
A.
The
correct answer is C.
Nearly half the coffee produced in the world is grown in
one of these two countries.
Q.
How
is coffee sometimes used in Japanese skin care
regimens?
A.
Coffee has been used as a natural
exfoliant, and the oils in coffee have been used for their moisturizing benefits. Coffee has also been used
for its healing properties on damaged skin. The
Japanese have been known to bathe in coffee
grounds fermented with pineapple pulp.
Q.
Where
was the first place that coffee was served in
Europe?
A.
Venice.
The Venetians were the first to introduce coffee
to Europe in 1615. By 1632 coffee houses began to
flourish throughout the continent, becoming
centers of social and cultural activity.
Q.
What
role does "Max Havelaar" play in the
fair trade movement?
A.
Max
Havelaar is the protagonist in a Dutch novel
written by Multatuli (the pen name of Eduard
Douwes Dekker), first published in 1860. In the
novel, Max Havelaar tries to battle against a
corrupt government system in Java, which was a
Dutch colony at a time. The character's name was
adopted by the Max Havelaar Foundation, a fair
trade labeling organization based in the
Netherlands. As a member of Fairtrade Labelling
Organizations International (FLO), the Max
Havelaar Foundation defines the standards and
verifies compliance with fairtrade criteria
throughout the trade chain. Since it operates as a
non-profit organization, the Foundation does not
deal directly with products, but it grants
organizations a license to use its label.
Q.
When
and where was the first prototype for an espresso
machine created?
A.
The
prototype of the first espresso machine was
created in France in 1822.
Q.
How
much caffeine can the human body absorb at a given
time? (in milligrams)?
A.
300
milligrams in one hour.
Q.
Where
did the term "cup of joe" come from?
A.
Legend
has it that the term originates from the days when
the U.S. Navy served alcoholic beverages onboard
ships. However, when Admiral Josephus
"Joe" Daniels became Chief of Naval
Operations, he outlawed alcohol while shipboard,
except for very special occasions. As a result,
coffee became the beverage of choice, which the
sailors referred to as a "Cup of Joe."
Q.
If
your coffee tastes bitter it is probably due to
the following:
A.
bad water and bad Karma
B. a long brew
cycle and too fine of a grind
C. a short
brew cycle
A.
B. a long brew
cycle and too fine of a grind
Q.
Who
is credited with inventing the first drip coffee
maker, when she made a filter out of her son's
notebook paper?
A.
Meslitta
Bentz, in 1809.
Q.
Which
country once enacted a law permitting a wife to
divorce her husband if he failed to keep the
household supplied with coffee?
A.
Ottoman
Turkey (1475) had a law that made it legal for a
woman to divorce her husband if she didn't have
her daily fill/quota.
Q.
What makes the Sumatran beans known as Kopi Luwak the
rarest and most expensive coffee beans in the world?
A.
They are harvested from the digestive tract of the
Indonesian palm civet – a catlike carnivore also
known as a luwak. The animal prowls the coffee
plantations of Sumatra and eats only the ripest
cherries from the trees. It digests the juicy red
fruit covering the beans but not the beans
themselves, which pass undisturbed through the
creature's gastrointestinal tract.
The
beans ferment from the enzymatic action of the
luwak's stomach acids – an all-natural process
that neatly mirrors the efforts of coffee
processors who ferment premium beans before
roasting them in order to lower their acidity. The
luwak leaves its black gold on the jungle floor,
where it is eagerly collected by locals.
A
coffee company in Atlanta markets the beans for
$300 per pound!
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