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January Newsletter - 2012
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Important Announcement....Important Announcement
During December The Eldest Alpaca Farmers' Daughter was named the 2011 Female Country Music Entertainer Of the year for the Charlotte, NC region!
Yep, Dawn Hardee, now wears that crown and it is well deserved!!!
To celebrate, The Alpaca Bean Coffee Co will be giving FREE, one of Dawn's CDs to any customer ordering two bags of coffee from our online store...believe me, you haven't heard the best of Country until you sit back and listen to The Alpaca Farmers' Daughter's CD.
This offer will be for the month of January 2012 only!!! |
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Coffee Facts and Trivia to Start Your Year
Coffee Facts (of sorts):
- Coffee is the most popular drink worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.
- It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso.
- On average, men drink more coffee than women (1.7 cups per day vs 1.5 cups)
- 37% of coffee drinkers drink their coffee black; while 63% add a sweetener such as sugar
- Instant coffee accounts for 13% of all coffee drunk.
- 57% of coffee is drunk at breakfast; 34% between meals and 13% at other meals.
- It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans drink a total of 350 million cups of coffee a day.
- About half of all American adults have a cup of coffee to start their day.
- The USA is the world's largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20 million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing 1/3 of all coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee typically drinking 3.4 cups of coffee a day.
- The first European coffee was sold in pharmacies in 1615 as a medicinal remedy.
- cappuccino is so named because of the drink's peak of foam which resembles the cowl of a Capuchin friar's habit.
- Espresso contains less caffeine than any other roast.
- Bach wrote a coffee cantata in 1732.
- The US Navy used to serve alcoholic beverages on board ships. However when Admiral Josephus "Joe" Daniels became Chief of Naval Operations, he outlawed alcohol on board ships, except for very special occasions. Coffee then became the drink of choice, hence the term "Cup of Joe".
- The heavy tax on tea imposed in 1773 on the colonies that resulted in the "Boston Tea Party" resulted in America switching from mainly drinking tea to coffee. To drink coffee was an expression of freedom.
- Italians do not drink espresso during meals. It is considered to be a separate event and is given its own time.
- In the ancient Arab world, coffee became such a staple part of family life that one of the causes allowed by law for marital separation was a husband's refusal to produce coffee for his wife.
- For reducing wrinkes and improving their skin, the Japanese have been known to bathe in coffee grounds fermented with pineapple pulp.
- The Europeans first added chocolate to their coffee in the 1600's.
- Our sense of smell, more than any of our other senses makes our final judgement on coffee.
- The French philosopher, Voltaire, reportedly drank fifty cups of coffee a day.
- Decaffeinated coffee sales are at their highest in January due to people's New Year resolutions.
- Scandinavia has the world's highest per capita annual coffee consumption, 26.4 pounds.
- The human body will absorb just 300 milligrams of caffeine at a given time. Additional amounts are cast off and provide no additional stimulation. The human body dissipates 20% of the caffeine in it's system per hour.
- Wild medical contraptions used to exist to administer a mixture of coffee and an assortment of heated butter, honey and oil to treat the sick.
- Regular coffee drinkers have about 1/3 less asthma symptoms than those of non-coffee drinkers according to a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.
- Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea, a sixfold increase since 1940.
Coffee Trivia:
- 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.
- Among all of the major agricultural products of the world, coffee harvesting remains virtually untouched by mechanisation.
- The Americas produce approximately 2/3 of the world's coffee supply.
- The two main suppliers of coffee in the world are Brazil and Colombia, with Brazil contributing around 30% of the total.
- Over five million people are employed in Brazil by the coffee trade. Most of those are involved with the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants.
- The best soil for growing coffee consists of leaf mould, other organic matter and disintegrated volcanic rock!
- The coffee tree produces its first full crop when it is about five years old. Thereafter it produces consistently for 15 to 20 years.
- From the mid 1800s up until the 1970s, over 50% of Brazil's foreign trade income came from growing coffee beans.
- There are three main commercial types of coffee bean from amongst many these are Arabica, Robusta and Liberia.
- Robusta and Liberian coffee grows best at lower altitudes whereas Arabica is better suited to higher altitudes.
- Coffee berries do not ripen uniformly. The same branch may display ripe red berries, unripe green berries and overripe black berries. Conscientious growers select only the ripe berries.
- To make a roasted pound of coffee it takes around 2,000 hand-picked Arabica coffee cherries. With 2 beans per cherry - this means around 4,000 beans are in a single pound of coffee.
- A mature coffee tree will produce one pound of coffee per growing season.
- German immigrants in Guatemala developed a cultivation process to use in extreme weather conditions. They burn rubbish near the plantations in severe weather and the dense smoke protects the trees from frost and produces a smoky flavour in the beans.
- Hawaii is the only state of the United States in which coffee is commercially grown.
- Hawaii features an annual Kona Festival - a coffee picking contest. Each year the winner becomes a state celebrity
- Robusta Coffee has twice as much caffeine in it than Arabica.
- The principle psychological effects of coffee are due to caffeine, an alkaloid that acts as a mild stimulant.
- An ordinary cup of coffee contains about 150 milligrams of caffeine - what most physicians call a "theraputic dose".
- According to the speciality coffee association of America, the premium bean category of the industry has grown into a $1.5 billion annual industry.
- Over 25 million people are employed in the coffee industry.
- 'non-volatile' taste components in coffee include: caffeine, trigonelline, chlorogenic acid, phenolic acids, amino acids, carbohydrates and minerals.
- 'volatile' aroma components in coffee include: organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters, amines and mercaptans.
- After brewing, espresso coffee contains 2.5% fat and filter coffee contains 0.6% fat.
- Coffee grows in more than 50 countries and is the second largest export in the world after oil (in dollar value).
- Coffee sacks are usually made of hemp and weigh approximately 132 pounds when they are full of green coffee beans. It takes over 600,000 beans to fill a coffee sack.
If you enjoyed these facts and trivia notations...well then I am glad I stole them for you to read...yep, I took them from a variety of sources on the internet and consolidated them here for you. If nothing else, I figured it would give you a way of delaying that age old process of resolution development...maybe until 2013 or some other date in the future, eh?
Take a deep breath, cause it is 2012...who woulda' believed it, huh? Well, take in the Rose Bowl Parade...or as it is better known, The Tournament of Roses Parade, two or ten bowl games...then put on your "game face" and get out into the world! See you next month! |
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On A Personal Note...
Well we went and done it! Yep, we looked into the potential for moving our attention from alpacas to other things...like taking care of this coffee business as a full time gig. We did...but then we decided that we will need some assistance from the next generation, and we do not feel they are quite ready for the pressures of the "alpaca lifestyle". :o) JUST KIDDING!!!!
Really, Jude and I love these special livestock critters, but we also enjoy the task of coffee roasting and providing you with the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of the roasting! It is really nice to hear from a good alpaca friend saying, "You know George, that new Bolivian Espresso roast you all are offering is the best I HAVE EVER tasted!" Now this fella really made an impact saying that since he went on to say that he had gone out and bought some Starbucks espresso just to make sure...and yep, he held on to ours being the best! THEN HE ORDERED FIVE POUNDS so he could share with friends and family!!!
As we enter 2012, we want to let you all know that we feel blessed to have you as customers and friends. Like the saying goes, "A good cup of coffee is a pleasure...a good friend is a treasure."
AND speaking of friends...
You might recall that a couple of months ago I wrote about our experience at the Ag Expo in Moultrie, GA...about the weather and about the great alpaca folks we were with...well, there was something else about that adventure that I did not tell you...so here is the rest of the story!
While down in that southern, or at least South Georgia, location, we spent a bunch of time with a variety of folks interested in finding out more about the alpaca. There was a young couple in particular that really impressed us with their interest, and their questions about the critters. Then it went a bit further up the scale in interest...you see during the talking, the young lady said, "We have the same name as you!" Naturally, being somewhat slow, I thought she meant first names...but no, she said, "We have the same last name."
Their names were David and Rachel Dick...and they met in college in Iowa...they were spending a while on a Florida farm interning and would soon be going back home. First to Iowa then to Michigan...well, for some reason we asked them to stop by and see us on their journey north. Did not really expect them to do that, but really felt a kinship to them for some reason.
Time went by and we got an email saying that if we were serious, well they would take us up on the offer! We were serious and they did just that...and boy are we glad they did! What a visit and what a special young couple. David's father now runs their family dairy farm and David will be working with his dad and brother on this farm that has been in their family for over 100 years.
Why am I telling you this story???? Well, I reckon' it is because it is like fate that we ran into this great opportunity to host two special folks...and we took advantage of the opportunity. How many times would we simply chitchat and move on with our singular lives and miss out on an absolute treasure of an experience. It just felt natural to ask Rachel and David to stay with us because when we met them...well, it felt like family. Are we, in fact, kin? No telling...at first glance it does not appear possible since David's family has German roots and mine has Scot and Irish roots...but then the Dutch did invade Scotland many centuries ago...so who knows? After having them in our home for a couple of days, Jude and I are definitely claiming them!!!
You know...I reckon' we have claimed a bunch of folks along the way in our alpaca and coffee company experiences. Can't seem to help it, cause there is a kinship among us all...don't you think? Boy it is great to have so many cousins...and we seem to gain more and more each time we take advantage of special times together.
Have a great 2012!!! And if you have a chance to invite a couple of potential new family members home for a visit...DO IT! Bet you will be happy you did! :o)
Peace,
The Coffeeman
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