[HN Gopher] The History of Coffee (2015)
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The History of Coffee (2015)
Author : thunderbong
Score : 99 points
Date : 2023-06-21 16:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ncausa.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ncausa.org)
| aksss wrote:
| Here is a very enjoyable episode of In Our Time on the history of
| coffee:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4x1
| rodelrod wrote:
| "The famed Brazilian coffee owes its existence to Francisco de
| Mello Palheta, who was sent by the emperor to French Guiana to
| get coffee seedlings."
|
| Small nitpick: at this time Brazil was a Portuguese colony and
| the monarch was called King John V, not an "emperor". Brazil only
| got an emperor when it became independent about one century
| later.
|
| Why did Peter, the son of a Portuguese King ruling over
| territories spanning 4 continents, decided to call himself an
| Emperor when ruling over a single (albeit large!) territory? I
| don't know, ego?
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| I think calling yourself emperor was all the rage at the time.
|
| Prior to Napoleon and the dissolution of the HRE the Roman
| Empire was sort of still viewed as single and indivisible, it
| wasn't a exactly a generic title (well.. at most there could be
| two legitimate ones).
|
| But now you had the Emperor of the French, Emperor of Austria,
| Russia (prior to that), so why not Brazil? Since you're
| establishing a new state anyway might as well pick the best
| available title.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Why not, I know folks who call themselves Senior Data
| Professionals who can't even use Excel.
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| I once worked with a 'senior XML developer'
| Alupis wrote:
| "Engineers" making CRUD apps...
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| > The controversy was so great that Pope Clement VIII was asked
| to intervene. He decided to taste the beverage for himself before
| making a decision, and found the drink so satisfying that he gave
| it papal approval.
|
| if someone would have given him a pinch of coke it might be
| sanctioned now by the church. i'm sure he would have found it
| very satisfying, too ... ;D
| brox wrote:
| Later popes did indeed. Popes Leo XIII and Pius X were drinkers
| of the Vin Mariani coca wine, the former even awarding its
| creator Angelo Mariani a Vatican gold medal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| > It originally contained 6 mg of cocaine per fluid ounce of
| wine (211.2 mg/L),
|
| 0.2g per L of uncut yeyo ... that's definitely not a placebo.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| That's gonna pack a fair whallop, especially given the
| coadministration with ethanol results in the whole
| cocaethylene thing happening resulting in a longer lasting
| buzz.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| those were the days ... but then society went down the
| drain and they all died - good that it's illegal now and
| nobody uses it anymore!
| rob74 wrote:
| Vin Mariani was the inspiration for John Pemberton to create
| his own "French Wine Coca" nerve tonic, which also included
| caffeine from the Kola nut. Later, influenced by the
| temperance movement, he left out the alcohol (but not the
| coca), and thus, the first iteration of Coca-Cola was born...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-
| Cola#19th_century_histori...
| thomasfl wrote:
| Caffeine is a drug. It is legal by chance alone. I wish I never
| started taking it as a teenager.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine
| maxilevi wrote:
| Why?
| thomasfl wrote:
| As I am getting older, coffee makes me wake up at night to
| visit the toilet.
| williamdclt wrote:
| That's a bit of a weak supporting argument for "it is legal
| by chance alone"
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You generally should not drink coffee cca 6 hours before
| going to sleep, there is no way diuretic effect still
| persist during your sleep if you adhere to this simple
| principle.
|
| If you already got addicted, or just self-curing some other
| problems with high doses of coffee, maybe attack those
| problems head-first. Coffee is really not source of your
| issues in this case.
|
| If we view it from perspective of addiction, then sugar
| should be banned in all forms first and foremost, _then_
| lets start talking about relatively mild stuff like
| caffeine. And all this is long after alcohol and all
| nicotine products are long banned. We know already how well
| that works, right.
| Jarmsy wrote:
| There's also a big genetic variation in caffeine
| metabolisation speed between individuals. For some 4
| hours before bed might be fine, while for others even 12+
| hours before messes up their sleep.
| kzrdude wrote:
| I get by on one cup of coffee before noon now, it seems
| to work. I'm one of those that feels effects on sleep
| from just more than one cup or coffee much later than
| lunch.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| It could be due to an enlarged prostate rather than the
| coffee.
| fifticon wrote:
| As an older male, I can confirm that all these causes add
| up. By controlling or limiting some of them, I can keep
| the consequences in check.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| overboil wrote:
| Just stop drinking the stuff then... You'll have a wicked
| headache the first week, but after that you'll be okay.
| tgv wrote:
| I've never experienced anything worse than a mild one,
| and then only one day. Just reduce intake gradually. If
| coffee is a drug, kicking the habit is really the easiest
| thing.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > You'll have a wicked headache
|
| Really?
|
| I used to drink a litre a day when I worked from home,
| brewed strong. Later I got an office job, and my
| consumption slowly tailed off, to te point I was drinking
| just one mug in the morning. No effort, no plan or
| intention, and certainly no headaches. It's no problem if
| I miss my morning joe.
|
| I have an addictive personality, and I drink and smoke a
| lot; I don't think any addictive substance is easier to
| quit than coffee.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Could be that the nicotine helped make up for your
| caffeine deficit.
| Fricken wrote:
| I drink ~8 cups per day most days, but I only need one to
| avoid getting a headache.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| That's an incredible amount of coffee/caffeine. I had to
| realize I had a problem when I was up to 5, but that's
| just me of course.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Yes, really!
|
| What you did is called tapering. You reduced your dose
| slowly enough to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
|
| I assure you that the withdrawal is very real, though
| nothing ibuprofen can't take care of. To experience it,
| just quit drinking all caffeine cold turkey.
| klondike_klive wrote:
| I got ill and couldn't keep anything down. The caffeine
| withdrawal was brutal. I resolved not to start drinking
| caffeinated coffee again. Decaff worked for a few months.
| Now I'm back on the full strength, but not as much.
| mejutoco wrote:
| Coffee is diuretic. Pineapple or asparagus might have the
| same effect. But maybe unnoticeable because they don't keep
| you awake :)
|
| I switched to decaf and can enjoy this pleasure without a
| bad sleep.
| aerio wrote:
| Same, but only because I keep drinking it until 2am.
| tchaffee wrote:
| It's not legal by chance. Coffee is good for the heart and
| possibly slightly extends life. It can help you get stuff done.
| Not all drugs are bad for you.
|
| https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947300?
| lb1lf wrote:
| And, if you'd like to see a little bit of what goes on where the
| coffee is grown, you could do worse than picking up one of the
| below excellent photobooks:
|
| Sebastiao Salgado's 'Scent of a Dream' or Steve McCurry's 'From
| These Hands' - both provide a wonderful portrait of the people
| who work hard to bring coffee to our shores. (Salgado works in
| B/W, McCurry almost exclusively in colour, if that makes a
| difference to you.)
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| Here's someone trying to evolve the industry to be more worker
| and environmentally friendly.
|
| https://terraformcoldbrew.com/
| nicholassmith wrote:
| If anyone looks at this page and wants a bit more then I'd
| recommend The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen, it's a travelogue
| as he explores the origins and cultural impact of coffee across
| the world.
| rubymancer wrote:
| And if you're a tea person like me, I highly recommend this
| history:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/All-Tea-China-England-Favorite/dp/014...
|
| Tea has the larger world-historical impact, I would say.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I really dislike the taste of coffee, but the article is a very
| interesting read.
|
| Funny quote:
|
| >Coffee began to replace the common breakfast drink beverages of
| the time -- beer and wine.
| shagie wrote:
| > I really dislike the taste of coffee
|
| One of the variations on making coffee that I've read about is
| Black Blood of the Earth.
|
| http://www.funraniumlabs.com/the-black-blood-of-the-earth/
|
| > Then I received my diagnosis as a Type II diabetic. I could
| no longer add sugar in the quantity necessary to make coffee
| from the cafe next door drinkable, but if I didn't drink coffee
| I was in danger of not being able to actually stay awake
| through a morning of wrangling x-ray machines and radioactive
| materials. Experimentation began in earnest with BBotE as it
| promised to eliminate what I couldn't stand the most about
| normal percolation coffee, bitterness and acidity.
|
| The description is that it tastes like coffee smells.
|
| I've been curious about this myself. I am not a fan of _coffee_
| but in my explorations with advent calendars of a wide range of
| spirits I had some spiced coffee rum which was quite enjoyable.
| So, if my caffeine needs lead me in that direction again, I 'll
| likely give it a try.
| torcete wrote:
| Today I came across with this Wikipedia article about the coffee
| crisis in east Germany in the '70s
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_coffee_crisis
|
| You can see how important coffee has become in our society.
|
| On a more funny note, I always found this episode of Dexter's Lab
| hilarious:
|
| https://youtu.be/QZpy9r_KXqc
| malermeister wrote:
| Fun fact: East Germany created the Vietnamese Coffee Industry
| in an attempt to find a way out of the crisis:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBnQrqW6ZNE
|
| Brotherly socialist nations and all that.
| fipar wrote:
| Reminds me of the scene from movie Aeroplane where the flight
| attendant announces all that's wrong with the flight, and
| nobody bats an eye. Then as she's almost done, she adds that
| they've ran out of coffee, and then panic ensues.
| dxs wrote:
| Gastropod has two excellent podcasts on the subject...
|
| (1) "Grounds for Revolution: The Stimulating Story of How Coffee
| Shaped the World" at https://gastropod.com/grounds-for-
| revolution-the-stimulating...
|
| (2) "Deja-Brew: How Coffee Got Bad, Then Worse, and, Finally,
| Good Again" at https://gastropod.com/deja-brew-how-coffee-got-
| bad-then-wors...
| yagizdegirmenci wrote:
| There is also a fascinating story about how we got coffee breaks,
| as it turns out the today what we consider "coffee breaks" is
| tied to a court case back in 1955!
|
| See this article from Time:
| https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,937...
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| It was the unions wasn't it?
| tekla wrote:
| No
| actinium226 wrote:
| I don't see a connection to the larger practice of coffee
| breaks. It looks more like one guy had an argument about
| whether or not to pay workers for break time.
| yagizdegirmenci wrote:
| There are plenty amount of articles to read if you search for
| the court case, here are some:
|
| [1]: https://daily.stoa.com/newsletter/coffee-and-capitalism
|
| [2]: https://www.guadaluperoastery.com/blogs/news/how-coffee-
| infi...
| Beestie wrote:
| I am curious why you pretty much can't find any mainstream brand
| of coffee made from Robusto beans - I have never seen a Robusto
| bean coffee in any grocery store I've ever checked - all 100%
| Arabica. Seems like with 2x the caffiene there would be a market
| for it. There are plenty of high-caffiene specialty brands of
| Arabica - why not just get 2x in the same amount of coffee?
| Besides, I think the caffiene content they show on the labels is
| before roasting and the more they roast it, the less caffiene
| afterwards. There is a misconception that the darker, the more
| caffiene but its actually the opposite. Just dumb stuff I wonder
| about...
| windthrown wrote:
| I'm not sure where to find whole beans but I'm pretty sure many
| brands of instant coffee (e.g. the Folgers and Nescafe of the
| world) actually use Robusto or at least a blend of Robusto and
| Arabica.
| hackernudes wrote:
| I bought some unroasted (green) robusta beans from
| sweetmarias.com and then roasted them. It wasn't bad, but I
| prefer arabica. It has a more earthy taste. Some espresso
| blends are part robusta.
| tamiral wrote:
| i love posts like this as it mixes my passion of coffee ( as a
| roaster) and a community of tech folks that we can discuss all
| the history... Coffee has such a wide and interesting history
| rooted in capitalism.
| autreschiffres wrote:
| a large missing piece to the above "history" the article
| describes, is that somewhere along the way a fire accidentally
| roasted the coffee beans and this wrinkle enhanced the coffee
| preparation process. Many legends exist telling the context story
| of how this fire occurred.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Coffee is surprisingly young in history. You'd think it was known
| (somewhere) since ancient or older times, but it seems to be
| since 1500s.
|
| I think that means that drinking or eating cocoa is a much older
| custom than coffee?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One theory is that the era of industrialism started because
| Europeans started drinking coffee, which made them more
| industrious.
| soligern wrote:
| People have been drinking tea for 4000 years. Yerba mate and
| guayasa have also been consumed for a long time, possibly even
| pre Incan so caffeine has been consumed for a long time.
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