Background
Coffee Knowledge
The background that ties the index together: where coffee grows, how the plant works, who produces the most, and how specialty coffee is judged.
These entries cover the big picture behind every origin and variety in the index: the coffee belt, the plant itself, the countries that produce the most, how coffee spread around the world, how coffee is scored and sold at auction, and the coffee cultures of Italy and Japan.
Entries (9)
- A Short History of CoffeeFrom a Yemeni Sufi ritual to Ottoman coffeehouses, European trade and colonial plantations, coffee's documented history is stranger than its most famous legend.
- Coffee Auctions: Cup of Excellence and Best of PanamaCup of Excellence and Best of Panama score coffee through blind juries, then auction the winning lots online, often for record prices.
- Italian Coffee CultureItalian coffee culture runs on the standing espresso bar and the stovetop moka pot, backed by more than a century of machine history and widely followed customs.
- Japanese Coffee CultureJapan's coffee culture spans century-old kissaten cafes, vending-machine canned coffee, meticulous pour-over brewing, and a decades-long appetite for Jamaica Blue Mountain.
- The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee GrowsCoffee grows only within a tropical coffee belt, where altitude and climate, more than latitude alone, decide what grows where, and climate change is shifting the map.
- The Coffee Plant: How Coffee GrowsCoffee comes from the flowering shrub Coffea, whose cherries, genuine fruit despite the name bean, take three to seven years to reach a first harvest.
- The World's Most Famous CoffeesA guide to why coffees like Jamaica Blue Mountain, Panama Geisha and Kona became famous, not a ranking of which one is best.
- The World's Top Coffee-Producing CountriesBrazil and Vietnam dominate world coffee production, and USDA's country-by-country bag counts show exactly where the rest of the top ten, and tiny Jamaica, rank.
- What Is Specialty Coffee?Specialty coffee traditionally means 80-plus cupping points, but the SCA's current definition covers flavor, origin, growing practices and processing together.