15 Little Known Facts About Coffee

Chant with me:  Coffee!  Coffee!  Coffee!

Most moms I know live on coffee (and wine, but I won't go into that).


Without java, we could not work, clean house, or have enough energy for our kids. In other words, we could not function.


So I did a bit of research about this brew and here are some things I did not know about this “nectar of moms”:

1. Light roast coffee contains more caffeine than dark roast.
   
   
2. The “perfect ratio” for coffee is 2 tablespoons of grounds per every 6 ounces of water.
   
   
3. Approximately 75% of the world's coffee (Arabica) comes from the Coffea Arabica plant. The other 25% (Robusta) comes from the Coffea canephora plant. 
   
   
4. Robusta beans are heartier than Arabica, but they produce an inferior-tasting brew with a higher caffeine content.
   
   
5. Caffeine is on the International Olympic Committee's list of prohibited substances. Athletes who test positive for more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of urine risk being banned from the Olympic Games.
   
   
6. Decaf coffee is not caffeine-free. It still has 8.6 to 19.9 milligrams of caffeine, as opposed to 95 to 200 milligrams found in regular coffee.
   
   
7. The best time to drink coffee is between 9:30am and 11:30am. That's when the hormone, cortisol, which is responsible for making you feel awake and alert, drops.
    
8. The worst time to drink coffee is between 8am and 9am when cortisol levels are highest. Oh, and if you drink coffee at the same time every day, the effects of the caffeine will not be as high as they would be if you varied when you drank it.
   
   
9. Coffee beans are really berries. Berries are fruit, so technically, coffee is a fruit juice.
   
   
10. In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if they failed to keep their family's pot filled with coffee.
    
    
11. Caffeine increases the effect of some painkillers, including aspirin.
    
    
12. Espresso is not a type of coffee bean. Rather, it is a type of coffee brewing method.
    
    
13. After the decaffeinating processing, companies don't throw away the caffeine. They sell it to pharmaceutical companies. 
    
    
14. Coffee trees are evergreen and self-pollinating.
    
    
15. Most coffee sold are blends of different beans.

So enjoy your coffee! Not only is it healthy, but if it helps you keep up with your kids, more power to you!

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Sources for this article include: http://gomestic.com, http://en.ilovecoffee.jp, www.coffeeresearch.org, http://coffeecupnews.org, and www.weirdfacts.com.