Many of us can’t start our days without at least one cup of coffee, but we don’t really give the magic beans much thought after we drain our mugs. Let’s take a look at a few questions you might have about the intricacies of the coffee business.
How do you decaffeinate coffee beans?
There are a number of ways to cut the eye-opening power of a cup of joe, but the methods are basically pretty similar. First, processors use water or steam to swell the green beans, then they extract the caffeine using a solvent. Water, ethyl acetate, methylene chloride, or highly pressurized carbon dioxide strip the caffeine away from the beans, which are then steamed to remove any solvent residues and dried.
Do these methods get all the caffeine out?
Not quite, but it strips away quite a bit. According to U.S. law, any decaffeinated coffee must retain less than 2.5% of its caffeine, while in the EU only 0.1% of decaf beans’ dry weight can be caffeine. According to the International Coffee Organization, a cup of decaf has around 3 mg of caffeine in it, while the average 5 oz. cup of drip coffee contains 115 mg.
What happens to all the caffeine that gets stripped from the coffee?
It would be a shame for all that caffeine to go to waste—there are undercaffeinated children in third-world countries, you know—so processors save and sell the jittery gold. Pharmaceutical companies and soft drink makers are the big customers for the extracts; although the kola nut provides a bit of a jolt for your cola, the majority of the caffeine in your soda comes from the addition of caffeine extracted from coffee beans during decaffeination.
Can you age coffee?
You don’t want to age that bag of beans you picked up at your local coffeehouse, but coffee producers have aging down to a science. Green coffee beans can take up to 10 years of aging in special warehouses; over time their acidity dies down as their body increases.
A special type of aging in tropical regions results in what’s known as “monsooned” coffee. Processors leave beans in open-sided warehouses where they will be exposed to the moist air and winds of monsoon season, which can cut down on acidity and add body in just a few weeks. The most common example of this practice is monsooned Malabar, a prized coffee from southern India.
Has coffee ever been illegal?
The Ottoman Empire cracked down on coffee and coffeehouses at various times, but the most notable ban came under Murad IV, who was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire between 1623 and 1640 and probably wasn’t described as “a fun guy” by any of his subjects. Murad banned tobacco use in the empire and would even walk around in plain clothes looking for smokers. If the emperor caught someone lighting a butt, his majesty would beat the person with his mace.
Tobacco wasn’t Murad’s only nemesis, though. When he realized that his subjects were congregating in coffeehouses to grouse about having an absolute whack job for an emperor, he banned coffee in the entire Ottoman Empire. Getting caught with a cup of joe earned subjects a beating. Hitting the java a second time got you sewn in a sack and dumped into the waters of the Bosphorus.
Where did the cappuccino get its name?
The delightful concoction of espresso, hot milk, and foam takes its name from the Capuchins, a Roman Catholic order of friars. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the drink’s color resembled the brown robes worn by the Capuchins, so Italian coffee fans began to call the drink the cappuccino.
Where did we get the name “mocha”?
From a port in Yemen. During the 19th century, Mocha was an important port in Yemen where sailors could load their holds with Mocha Java, a tasty blend of local Arabian coffee and beans from the Indonesian island of Java. The renowned blend wasn’t cheap, though, so other coffee roasters attempted to replicate the subtle chocolate notes of Mocha Java by adding chocolate directly to lesser beans. Over time, this combination of chocolate and coffee took on the name “café mocha” as a tribute to the port that inspired it.
Why do some coffees market themselves as “arabica”?
Although the name sounds exotic, “arabica” doesn’t refer to a special roasting process or preparation. Instead, Coffee arabica is the scientific name of the species of coffee that produces over 60 percent of the world’s beans. Arabica coffee is generally regarded as being tastier and less bitter than the other main commercial species, Coffee canephora, but it is more susceptible to disease. While Coffee canephora doesn’t have the same yummy taste, it is a hardier plant and produces beans with more caffeine and a full-bodied mouthfeel.
Is there an actual Maxwell House?
There used to be. When it opened in 1869, the Maxwell House Hotel was Nashville’s largest and swankiest hotel, and through the early 20th century it pulled in famous guests like Teddy Roosevelt and various members of the Vanderbilt clan. The coffee took its name from the hotel, and for years ad men claimed that the “Good to the Last Drop” slogan originally came from Teddy Roosevelt after he slurped down a cup of the brew. Modern research, though, has suggested that the slogan came from a particularly inspired ad exec. A fire destroyed the Maxwell House in December 1961.
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About the Cappuccino… I understood from my Barista something similar, but not quite the same. He told me that its been named after friar’s big hoods. Hood in Italian is Cappuccio. Cappuccino literally translates to ‘little hood’. I’m not saying that this article is wrong, but I’m sure there is a lot more too it.
posted by Kate in Italy on 6-22-2010 at 9:12 am
How about the economics of the paper coffee filter? You get a year’s supply of them for around 5 bucks. Even when you include corporate and industrial purchases, it seems impossible for even one coffee filter manufacturing operation to remain viable, let alone the wide variety of companies making coffee filters.
posted by EMStoveken on 6-22-2010 at 9:18 am
Hey Kate! We’ve heard that too. But when we went to double-check, we weren’t able to verify it in one of our go-to dictionaries…
Oxford English Dictionary
noun (pl. cappuccinos) coffee made with milk that has been frothed up with pressurized steam.
ORIGIN Italian, ‘Capuchin’ (because the colour of the coffee resembles that of a Capuchin’s habit).
[habit: a long, loose garment worn by a member of a religious order.]
Merriam-Webster
Etymology: Italian, literally, Capuchin; from the likeness of its color to that of a Capuchin’s habit
Houghton Mifflin (via Yahoo)
Word History: In Italian cappuccino went on to develop another sense, “espresso coffee mixed or topped with steamed milk or cream,” so called because the color of the coffee resembled the color of the habit of a Capuchin friar. The first use of cappuccino in English is recorded in 1948.
Dictionary.com
a hot beverage consisting of espresso coffee and steamed milk, often served with powdered cinnamon and topped with whipped cream.
Origin: 1945–50; < It: lit., Capuchin , so called from a fancied resemblance of the drink’s color to the color of a Capuchin habit
posted by Jason English on 6-22-2010 at 10:23 am
Now you’ve got me curious, which I suppose is the true meaning of Mental_Floss itself. I might have to do a little digging in some Italian texts to see if I can find anything different. Good thing I was headed to the Library tonight anyways!
posted by Kate in Italy on 6-22-2010 at 10:30 am
We extracted caffeine from tea bags in my college organic chem class, pretty much exactly like you described! That was one of the cooler experiments.
posted by Erin on 6-22-2010 at 10:33 am
someone must have recently read Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast
posted by wennie on 6-22-2010 at 11:11 am
“Getting caught with a cup of joe earned subjects a beating. Hitting the java a second time got you sewn in a sack and dumped into the waters of the Bosphorus.”
Totally worth it.
posted by Ian on 6-22-2010 at 1:03 pm
Nice article, I became more dependant on the coffee when I started college and now I can’t go a day without it xD
posted by GH on 6-22-2010 at 1:30 pm
I can see the Maxwell House Hotel from my office window.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 6-22-2010 at 9:30 pm
as i name all my vehicles – my coffee with cream colored 56 chevy pickup was named mrs. olsen.
posted by dirk alan on 6-22-2010 at 11:48 pm
My favorite coffee trivia is the origin of the “Americano.” Which never was a drink until WWII. As I heard the story, the American soldiers in Italy would order coffee and get an Espresso. After going back and forth trying to explain that they actually wanted drip/filtered coffee the Italians finally dumped the espresso shots into hot water and served it to the soldiers, cursing them as “stupid Americanos.” :o)
A few other coffee tidbits:
1) Espresso does not have more caffeine than drip coffee. It always makes me laugh when people are so influenced by that misconception that they are “jittery” after a shot of espresso. The longer a ground bean is steeped, the more caffeine is extracted. Most shots are pulled in 10-15 seconds, drip coffee and french presses generally take 2+ minutes.
2) Tea per pound has more caffeine than coffee BUT the amount of loose tea that you use to brew a cup vs. the amount of ground beans that you use for coffee is much less, so in turn, tea is less potent.
3) Espresso is not generally the darkest roast. It does depend on the coffee roaster, but typically Italian and French roasts are darker.
My favorite coffees are Indonesian coffees, which are typically more “earthy.” I tend to find Latin American coffees to be too bright, read bitter.
posted by nancy pants on 6-23-2010 at 1:57 pm
Re: Capuchin – easy, the monks are named after their hoods, and the coffee is named after the monks!
posted by Gwan on 6-23-2010 at 5:49 pm
Can anybody knowledgeable about coffee answer this?
Most of the people I know keep their coffee in the refrigerator or even (Eek!) in their freezer!
I keep my coffee sealed in as best as I can at room temperature because I feel refrigeration makes coffee taste bland.
I’ve had some surprisingly heated arguments about this. The most reasonable argument was this :
They said coffee was a berry, and you keep a (straw, rasp, elden) berry in the fridge so that it won’t spoil.
I argued that coffee was like a peanut after processing, and had to be kept at room temperature.
So what say you?
posted by R. Millhaps on 6-24-2010 at 1:15 am
To RM in the short term your instincts are correct, the best way to store your coffe is room temp airtight and lightproof, however if you buy larger quantities (costco 3lb bags) its best to freeze 2 leave one out, after.about two weeks the difference between the ‘fresh’ and frozen will become apparent, and the frozen wins (provided you don’t expose the frozen to air while its acclimating thereby attracting moisture to the surface of your little black beans)
posted by stephen eggleston on 6-27-2010 at 1:24 pm
There is a hotel in Nashville called Maxwell House, operated by Millenium hotels, at 2025 Rosa L. Parks Blvd. It’s about three miles northwest of the original location at 4th Ave. and Church St.
posted by Joe Hash on 7-4-2010 at 7:25 am
@R. Millhaps – Nuts should be stored in the freezer. The oil in them turns rancid after awhile.
posted by Sam on 7-30-2010 at 12:44 pm