Coffee and the environment

Changes in how coffee plants are grown has resulted in effects on the environment.

Traditionally coffee plants were grown under the shade of trees, which provided natural habitat for many animals and insects, roughly approximating the biodiversity of a natural forest. The trees provided a moderate climate for the plants, and leaves that dropped from the shade trees enriched the soil. Farmers also used compost coffee pulp before chemical fertilizers were available. They also typically rotated crops and cultivated food alongside their cash crops, which provided additional income and food security.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s, during the "Green Revolution," the US Agency for International Development and other groups gave $80 million to plantations in Latin America for advancements to go along with the general shift to technified agriculture. These plantations replaced their shade grown techniques with sun cultivation techniques to increase yields, which in turn destroyed vast forests and biodiversity.

Sun cultivation involves cutting down trees, and high inputs of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Environmental problems, such as deforestation, pesticide pollution, habitat destruction, soil and water degradation, are the effects of most modern coffee farms, and the biodiversity on the coffee farm and in the surrounding areas suffer.

As a result, there has been a return to both traditional and new methods of growing shade-tolerant varieties. Shade-grown coffee can often earn a premium as a more environmentally sustainable alternative to mainstream sun-grown coffee.

Another issue concerning coffee is its use of water. According to New Scientist, it takes about 140 litres of water to produce one cup of coffee, and the coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, like Ethiopia.

Cultivation of Coffee throughout the world

Coffee is usually propagated by seeds. The traditional method of planting coffee is to put 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season; half are eliminated naturally. Coffee is often intercropped with food crops, such as corn, beans, or rice, during the first few years of cultivation.

The two main cultivated species of the coffee plant are Coffea canephora and Coffea arabica. Arabica coffee (from C. arabica) is considered more suitable for drinking than robusta coffee (from C. canephora); robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor than arabica. For this reason, about three-quarters of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica. However, C. canephora is less susceptible to disease than C. arabica and can be cultivated in environments where C. arabica will not thrive. Robusta coffee also contains about 40–50 percent more caffeine than arabica. For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robustas are used in some espresso blends to provide a better foam head and to lower the ingredient cost. Other cultivated species include Coffea liberica and Coffea esliaca, believed to be indigenous to Liberia and southern Sudan, respectively.

Most arabica coffee beans originate from either Latin America, eastern Africa, Arabia, or Asia. Robusta coffee beans are grown in western and central Africa, throughout southeast Asia, and to some extent in Brazil. Beans from different countries or regions usually have distinctive characteristics such as flavor, aroma, body, and acidity. These taste characteristics are dependent not only on the coffee's growing region, but also on genetic subspecies (varietals) and processing.Varietals are generally known by the region in which they are grown, such as Colombian, Java, or Kona.

The Anotomy of a Coffee Plant

The Coffea plant is native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. It belongs to a genus of 10 species of flowering plants of the family Rubiaceae. It is an evergreen shrub or small tree that may grow 5 meters (16 ft) tall when unpruned. The leaves are dark green and glossy, usually 10–15 centimeters (3.9–5.9 in) long and 6.0 centimeters (2.4 in) wide. It produces clusters of fragrant, white flowers that bloom simultaneously. The fruit berry is oval, about 1.5 centimeters (0.6 in) long,and green when immature, but ripens to yellow, then crimson, becoming black on drying. Each berry usually contains two seeds, but from 5 to 10 percent of the berries have only one; these are called peaberries.Berries ripen in seven to nine months.

Coffee in the Muslim World

The earliest mention of coffee may be a reference to Bunchum in the works of the 10th century CE Persian physician Razi, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.

The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled "Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa".He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Coffee's usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular among Sufis. A translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.

Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean. The first coffee house was Kiva Han, which opened in Istanbul in 1471.

Coffee was at first not well received. In 1511, it was forbidden for its stimulating effect by conservative, orthodox imams at a theological court in Mecca. However, the popularity of the drink led these bans to be overturned in 1524 by an order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I. In Cairo, Egypt, a similar ban was instituted in 1532, and the coffeehouses and warehouses containing coffee beans were sacked. Similarly, coffee was banned by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church some time before the 17th century, along with smoking tobacco and chewing the mild stimulant khat, as it was seen as a Muslim and pagan practice. However, in the second half of the 19th century, Ethiopian attitudes softened towards coffee drinking, and its consumption spread rapidly between 1880 and 1886; according to Richard Pankhurst, "this was largely due to [Emperor] Menilek, who himself drank it, and to Abuna Matewos who did much to dispel the belief of the clergy that it was a Muslim drink."

Bean and Gone: How I should drink my coffee?

see the original article here

Simon Webster
September 17, 2008

It's the simple things in life. For all their supposed sophistication, there's nothing Sydneysiders love more than getting back to basics: sitting in a wi-fi cafe, reading their Herald online while sipping a mochaccino witha splash of cold soy (hold the twist).

However, while feeding your psychoactive stimulant addiction may seem like healthy harmless fun, a caffeine fix comes at a price - and it is the environment that is getting the shakes.

Coffee is grown on 12million hectares worldwide - an area thesize of North Korea. About 99per cent of production is conventional, which destroys habitat and degrades soil and water, WWF says.

Coffee used to be grown under rainforest canopies. Since the 1970s, rainforests have been cleared to make way for dense rows of coffee plants grown in full sun, awash with substances that have skulls and crossbones on their labels (many of which have been banned in Australia) and harvested by workers, often children, who are barely better off than slaves.

Concerned coffee drinkers have long looked for the Fairtrade label, which indicates Third World farmers are getting better prices and working under better conditions.

The Rainforest Alliance also claims to look after workers, although critics say it does not go as far as Fairtrade. In addition, the alliance says coffee carrying its label is grown on forested farms using sustainable agriculture systems.

However, Rainforest Alliance coffee is not organic. Some chemical use is allowed.

An even better choice would be Australian-grown certified organic coffee, says Dave Forrest, a TAFE lecturer in organic farming and coffee production innorthern NSW.

"We're not destroying rainforests to plant coffee," says Forrest, who is also a small-scale producer and president of the Tweed Richmond Organic Producers Organisation. "Coffee in Australia is planted on pasture that was used for livestock. Any clearing that's done tends to be of lantana and camphors."

Organic producers enhance biodiversity and support the environment in the way they farm, Forrest says. Buying organic Australian coffee also reduces your food miles.

As for Third World farmers, Forrest says they would better off growing food for their own people. "That's more important than growing a cup of coffee for someone in Australia."

Whether your favourite cafe is serving ethical coffee is a question you will have to put to the barista.

When you make coffee at home you have much more control over what goes into it and how it's made.

A life cycle analysis conducted for Flexible Packaging Europe this year didn't consider organic versus conventional production but it did look at the process fromfarm to cup and found thatthe most environmentally important factor in making a cupof coffee was the method of brewing.

Boiling a kettle is so efficient that making a cup of instant coffee produced fewer greenhouse gases than making a cup of real coffee with a coffee machine, despite all the processing that went into manufacturing the instant.

The optimum method might be to boil a kettle and make real coffee in a plunger. Milk and sugar would be organic. Ideally the coffee would be black and unsweetened.

Research shows that the 10 per cent of Australians who buy espressos in cafes tend to be young men being macho, whichjust goes to show that testosterone is not all bad.

What we really need is for it to be considered macho to take your own mug when buying takeaway coffee at work. Imagine how much waste that would prevent.

Coffee in our societies

Coffee has played an important role in many societies throughout modern history. In Africa and Yemen, it was used in religious ceremonies. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its consumption until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. It was banned in Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century for political reasons, and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe.

Coffee is an important export commodity. In 2004, coffee was the top agricultural export for 12 countries, and in 2005, it was the world's seventh largest legal agricultural export by value.

Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Many studies have examined the relationship between coffee consumption and certain medical conditions; whether the effects of coffee are positive or negative is still disputed.

How did coffee got inside my coffee cup?

Coffee berries, which contain the coffee bean, are produced by several species of small evergreen bush of the genus Coffea. The two most commonly grown species are Coffea canephora (also known as Coffea robusta) and Coffea arabica. These are cultivated in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted, undergoing several physical and chemical changes. They are roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor. They are then ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways.

What is Coffee?

Coffee is a widely-consumed stimulant beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the coffee plant. Coffee was first consumed in the 9th century, when it was discovered in the highlands of Ethiopia. From there, it spread to Egypt and Yemen, and by the 15th century had reached Armenia, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, Indonesia and the Americas.Today, coffee is one of the most popular beverages worldwide.

Welcome to the CDD Blog.

The Coffee Daily Digest blog aims to inspire coffee afficionados through out the course of their everyday life. This blog also aims to share our coffee cup experiences, those little things that make us feel that there is always something more to life worth living.

This blog also aims to spread coffee awareness and drinking coffee as a healthy habit that individuals could pursue.