10 Facts You Never Knew About Coffee

The next time you are at your favorite coffee shop and someone catches your eye, here are ten interesting coffee facts that you can use to break the ice:

1) Coffee is considered an aphrodisiac. Because it contains a high dose of caffeine and other various alkaloids, studies have shown that coffee can increase stamina and the overall length of intimate sessions.

2) Although coffee has been a part of the Arab culture for thousands of years, it did not become part of the western world until the 1500s. Before that time, priests believed that coffee was a drink of the devil. Pope Clement VIII finally ended this line of thinking by taking a sip of coffee and then giving it his blessing.

3) Japan’s official Coffee Day is October 1st.

4) A single acre of coffee trees can yield close to ten thousand pounds of coffee cherries. Once they are milled or hulled, there are still almost two thousand pounds of coffee beans.

5) Forty-nine of the fifty states grow absolutely no coffee. The only state that grows coffee is Hawaii. Additionally, the only United States territory that grows coffee is Puerto Rico.

6) Germany is the second largest coffee consumer in the world. Forty-three percent of Germans add sweetener to their coffee, while only twenty-seven percent of Americans (the number one consumer of coffee) use any kind of sweetener in their coffee.

7) The English word coffee is derived from the Latin word Coffea. Coffea is the Latin name for a genus of trees.

8) Every single one of the fifty-three countries that grows coffee is located along the equator, between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.

9) On average, people who purchase their coffee from drive-through windows before work will spend around forty-five hours every year waiting in line for their coffee.

10) Petroleum is the only product that is traded more heavily than coffee. The amount of coffee produced around the world is close to six million metric tonnes.