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random stuff:

"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love" - Turkish Proverb.

A scientific report form the University of California found that the steam rising from a cup of coffee contains the same amounts of antioxidants as three oranges. The antioxidants are heterocyclic compounds which prevents cancer and heart disease. It's good for you! eek Breath it in deep! *sniffs*

Before the first French cafe in the late 1700's, coffee was sold by street vendors in Europe, in the Arab fashion. The Arabs were the forerunners of the sidewalk espresso carts of today.

Coffee lends its popularity to the fact that just about all flavors mix well with it.

Coffee trees produce highly aromatic, short-lived flowers producing a scent between jasmine and orange. These blossoms produce cranberry-sized coffee cherries. It takes four to five years to yield a commercial harvest.

Dark roasted coffees actually have LESS caffeine than medium roasts. The longer a coffee is roasted, the more caffeine burns off during the process.

Hawaii is the only state of the United States in which coffee is commercially grown. Hawaii features an annual Kona Festival, coffee picking contest. Each year the winner becomes a state celebrity. In Hawaii coffee is harvested between November and April.

Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.

In Italy, espresso is considered so essential to daily life that the price is regulated by the government.

In Sumatra, workers on coffee plantations gather the world's most expensive coffee by following a gourmet marsupial who consumes only the choicest coffee beans. By picking through what he excretes, they obtain the world's most expensive coffee -'Kopi Luwak', which sells for over $100 per pound eek

In the last three centuries, 90% of all people living in the Western world have switched from tea to coffee.

Italians do not drink espresso during meals. It is considered to be a separate event and is given its own time.

Jamaica Blue Mountain is often regarded as the best coffee in the world.

Large doses of coffee can be lethal. Ten grams, or 100 cups over 4 hours, can kill the average human.

Raw coffee beans, soaked in water and spices, are chewed like candy in many parts of Africa.

Regular coffee drinkers have about one-third less asthma symptoms than those non-coffee drinkers. So says a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.