General Facts

• Adding sugar to coffee is believed to have started in 1715, in the court of King Louis XIV, the French monarch.
• Beethoven who was a coffee lover, was so particular about his coffee that he always counted 60 beans each cup when he prepared his brew.
• Coffee is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.
• Coffee, along with beer and peanut butter, is on the national list of the "ten most recognizable odors."
• Coffee, as a world commodity, is second only to oil.
• During World War II the U.S. government used 260 million pounds of instant coffee.
• Frederick the great had his coffee made with champagne and a bit of mustard.
• 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.
• Hills Brothers Ground Vacuum Packed Coffee was first introduced in 1900.
• Iced coffee in a can has been popular in Japan since 1945.
• If you like your espresso coffee sweet, you should use granulated sugar, which dissolves more quickly, rather than sugar cubes; white sugar rather than brown sugar or candy; and real sugar rather than sweeteners which alter the taste of the coffee.
• In 1670, Dorothy Jones of Boston was granted a license to sell coffee, and so became the first American coffee trader.
• In early America, coffee was usually taken between meals and after dinner.
• In Italy, espresso is considered so essential to daily life that the price is regulated by the government.

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