Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage prepared from the roasted or baked seeds of several species of an evergreen shrub of the genus Coffea. The two most common sources of coffee beans are the highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the "robusta" form of the hardier Coffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), but has a more bitter taste. Coffee plants are cultivated in more than 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee "berries" are picked, processed and dried to yield the seeds inside. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee.

• To my mother, pouring the morning coffee was a secret ritual—irrigating the garden, she called it.
  • Rabih Alameddine, The Half-Wall (2011), reprinted in Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond (2013), ISBN 978-0-9891411-4-7, p. 64

• The coffee, when he tried it, was strong almost to the point of being unbearable, but not quite. In short, it was divine.
  • K. A. Bedford, Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18

• Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake in the afternoon.
  • Jilly Cooper, How to Survive From Nine to Five, 1970. Quoted in The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, ed. Rosalie Maggio.

• “Right,” Holden said. “No coffee. This is a terrible, terrible planet.”
  • James S. A. Corey, Cibola Burn (2014), ISBN 978-0-316-21762-0, Chapter 41 (p. 421)

• I have measured out my life with coffee spoons (...)
  • T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," line 51

• For a writer, it's more essential than food.
  • Joan Frank, "Achieving Legal Liftoff", in The San Francisco Examiner Image, 1991. Quoted in The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, ed. Rosalie Maggio.

• It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war.
  • Frederick II of Prussia, 1777; quoted by Bert L. Vallée, Alcohol in the Western World, Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 6 (June), 1998, pp. 80-85

• There was coffee. Life would go on.
  • William Gibson, The Winter Market (originally published in Interzone #15, Spring 1986)

• “I brought coffee.”
  “Dinar of Prinagos has just won my unqualified support against the perfidious White Bragenmeres under any circumstances, at any time, in thought, word, deed, spell, and incantation.”
  • Barbara Hambly, The Rainbow Abyss (1991), ISBN 0-345-37101-1, p. 144

• Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road

• The voodoo priest and all his powers were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
  • Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995

• Coffee reached Western Europe in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, brought by mariners who had acquired a taste for it in the Near East. It was first established at seaports, but spread rapidly to major cities inland. Considered a dangerous stimulant, it was closely monitored by municipal and royal authorities who licensed and taxed its use. They also worried about its association with those citizens who made the new coffee houses into social and political gathering places. Already in 1675, Charles II of England tried to close down the coffee houses as places of sedition (popular pressure made him desist, however), and for the next two centuries they were frequently subjected to government surveillance and suppression.
  In Paris... [b]y the middle of the eighteenth century the café-tavern and café-restaurant were firmly embedded... Over the next hundred years they increased in both numbers and variety... Because tobacco and alcohol... were consumed in the cafés, and because a number of them became singing clubs... [c]offee, alcohol, and song were regarded as attributes of political opposition, so one of Louis Napoleon's first decrees (29 December 1851) put cafés under direct governmental authority and placed an outright ban on group singing in cafés; thousands were closed...
  Despite police surveilance, cafés generally prospered during the Second Empire. They took on new forms that are familiar to us from the lives of famous writers and impressionist painters.
  • Robert L. Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society (1988) pp. 65-66.

• Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it.
  • Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager, "Hunters")

• The influence of coffee in stimulating the genital organs is notorious.
  • John Harvey Kellogg (1877) Plain facts for old and young : embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life.

• Way too much coffee. But if it weren't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever.
  • David Letterman, in Bill Zehme, "Letterman Lets His Guard Down". Esquire, December 1994. Quoted in Quotationary, ed. Leonard Roy Frank.

• Coffee is a drink for grownups. No kid ever likes coffee. It’s psychoactive. Coffee is the drug of memory. I can remember the great cups of coffee of my life; the places, the faces, the words spoken. It never quite tastes the way it smells. If it did, we would drink it until our heads exploded with memory.
  • Ian McDonald, The Fifth Dragon, in Reach for Infinity (2014), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and published by Solaris ISBN 978-1-78108-203-4, p. 73

• I think if we see dropping prices, [they] are going to be modest.
  • Carlos Mera, head of the agri commodities markets team at Rabobank according to Coffee prices are crashing. What it means for your cup of joe (November 16, 2022) By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business

• Such coffee as in Poland you'll not find elsewhere:
  In a good house, in Poland, by old custom there,
  Making coffee's the task of one housemaid alone
  (As the coffee-maid known), who imports from the town,
  The best beans, or from trading barge buys them, and who
  Has her own secret ways of preparing the brew,
  Which as jet-black as coal is, and as amber limpid:
  Is as fragrant as mocca, and as honey viscid.
  It's well known that good coffee needs really good cream:
  In the country that's easy; the maid, at first beam,
  Sets the kettles, proceeds next to visit the dairies
  And there gathers the flower of cream; gently carries
  In a separate jug, to each cup freshly brought,
  So that each one is dressed in a separate coat.
  • Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz (tr. Marcel Weyland)

• Coffee, which makes the politician wise
  And see through all things with his half-shut eyes...
  • Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock

• She wasn’t certain what the future held, but coffee would be involved if she had any say in the matter.
  • Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

• Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.
  • Terry Pratchett, Thud!

• A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
  • Alfréd Rényi. Popularly attributed to Paul Erdős, who quoted him. (Bruce Schechter, My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdős, 1998, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0684846357)

• Grief, joy and coffee have much the same effect upon the eyelids.
  • Emmanuel Rhoides (1866). Pope Joan. Penguin Books. p. 128. ISBN 0-1400-3760-8.  Translated by Lawrence Durrell.

• I mentioned the caffeine. I should also note that if coffee does not prevent or inhibit sleep, it will stimulate dream projections, and also aid you in bringing the critical faculties into the dream state.
  • Jane Roberts, in The Early Sessions: Book 7, Session 290, Page 70

• The only thing that keeps me going ... is a good cup of freshly ground coffee. There's nothing to beat it! But for my coffee I'd have been dead long ago. And old woman alone. Pssss!
  • David Vogel, Married Life

• “‘Morning, Sam,” the coffee boy said. “How about some coffee?”
  “‘Morning, Herb,” I said. “That’s the first intelligent remark I’ve heard in some time.”
  • Richard Wilson, 30-Day Wonder (1960), Chapter 7

• The Italian Nerd does not exist (Nerd in the style of Gary Numan and Kraftwerk, of The Feelies and Devo). The Italian male does not feel / recognize the relevance of nerddom. This was felt at the Milan airport as a patrician black-clad gentleman moved the croissant into his mouth with gusto. The nerds, or what was left of them, were offered American coffee.
  • David Woodard and Christian Kracht, Five Years (2011)

A Brief History of Coffee Production and Consumption, Ninth edition, by Francis Beatty Thurber, American Grocer Publishing Association; source.

• At a majority of breakfast tables, "if the coffee is good everything is good," a fact so significant in itself that no other argument is needed...
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

• I began by investigating the mysteries of the kitchen; and this led to an examination into the different ways of making the beverage, including the use of many patent coffee-pots; the degree of fineness to which the coffee should be ground; the method and extent of roasting; the deterioration in quality after roasting; the best receptacle for the preservation of the aroma; and finally... a study of the varieties and qualities producing the best results. ...I have had an opportunity to verify impressions ...formed by observations made in some of the principal coffee producing and consuming countries.
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

• There are... conditions both in the selection and preparation of the bean which apply equally to all varieties, and which, if observed, will add greatly to the satisfaction of lovers of coffee.
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

• [C]offee was designed for man's sustenance and happiness as much as the golden grain, or the delicious fruits of mother earth.
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

• The story has been told of an Indian chief who, dressed in a robe of great beauty, came in contact with a trader, who tried every means to secure the coveted garment. At last the meeting terminated with the accustomed treat of coffee. The chief was one of the first to gratify his palate with the beverage. It seemed as if his spirits had been roused by some unseen power. He pressed eagerly for more, and, delighted at receiving a second supply, he threw upon the trader, as an expression of his joy, the magnificent robe that money could not purchase. Similar experiences attended the introduction of coffee into all the countries where it is consumed...
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

• My experience... leads me to the belief that two-thirds of the lovers of coffee are, from lack of knowledge, daily cheated out of the solid enjoyment of an ideal cup of coffee. ...It is ...my design to try and point out how dealers may select and furnish, and how consumers may prepare coffee which will satisfy the critical palate.
  • Introductory to Ch. 1

by William Harrison Ukers, Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company; source

• Civilization in its onward march has produced only three important non-alcoholic beverages—the extract of the tea plant, the extract of the cocoa bean, and the extract of the coffee bean.
  • Forward

• Coffee is universal in its appeal. All nations do it homage. ...It is ...a corollary of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect—the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces.
  • Forward

• It has been acclaimed "the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine," and "the most delightful taste in all nature."
  • Forward

• No "food drink" has ever encountered so much opposition as coffee. ...During the thousand years of its development it has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages.
  • Forward

• Beer
• Chocolate
• Milk
• Tea
• Wine

• Encyclopedic article on Coffee on Wikipedia
• The dictionary definition of coffee on Wiktionary
• ‘I Need My Coffee’: A Villanelle by Gigi Ryan, The Society of Classical Poets (July 6, 2024)
• ‘Coffee Limericks’ by Roy E. Peterson, The Society of Classical Poets (March 17, 2024)