Unveiling the Surprising Facts About Your Daily Cup of Joe

Coffee has become a large part of American society – it is the second most consumed beverage in the United States behind water – and brands like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have become ubiquitous in American life. Even those who don't typically consume java still frequent these coffee powerhouses for coffee-like treats or other sugary beverages. But there are some surprising truths about your morning Java that may pique your interest.

According to a 2023 survey by Drive Research, 73% of Americans drink coffee daily, and 93% drink it at least once a week. Whether you opt for a cup of joe at home in the morning, on the way to work, or as an afternoon pick-me-up, you can choose from the vast array of cafes, coffee shops, and specialty stores dotting the landscape, offering different varieties, from lattes and mochas to espressos and cappuccinos.

To compile a list of the surprising truths about your morning java, 24/7 Tempo consulted various entertainment and industry websites, including Good Housekeeping, Coffee1, and Common Room Roasters. We then selected a range of surprising aspects of coffee and its derivative tree and confirmed certain aspects of the information using sites like World Atlas and Cancer.org. (For more liquid libations, discover the most iconic drink from each state everyone should try.)

Coffee doesn't come from a plant but rather from the Coffea genus of shrubs or small trees providing the coffee bean. Thanks to its little fruit pip, this subset of shrubs and small trees is one of the most valuable and widely traded commodity products on Earth, acting as a primary export for countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and Central and South America.

It is alleged that an Ethiopian farmer discovered coffee. According to legend, a farmer and herdsman named Kaldi discovered the coffee tree's magical effects when he noticed his herd of goats constantly coalescing around a certain tree. Upon grazing the tree, the goats became energized.

The story was not known until it was included in one of the first coffee treatises, the 17th-century "De Saluberrima potione Cahue seu Cafe nuncupata Discursus." While it's probably a safe bet to say the story is fictitious, there are other legends about the discovery of coffee. Others say it was Yemeni Sheikh Omar who, upon being exiled from Mokha discovered the coffee berries and ate them to survive.

According to some estimates, coffee has at least 1,500 unique aromatic characteristics. Compared to wine, which features only 200 aromatic characteristics, coffee provides a far more complex flavor profile for your palette.

The Specialty Coffee Association of America created a flavor wheel to help coffeemakers judge the often subtle variations in taste. These include flavors like apricot and chocolate, as well as more interesting ones like straw or concrete. Moreover, professional coffee judges have a very different technique than wine sommeliers. Instead of delicately sniffing and sipping the beverage, coffee judges slurp coffee aggressively which helps account for the wide range of flavors felt in different parts of the mouth.

Thanks to its unique climate and soil conditions, Brazil is the perfect place to grow coffee trees on a large scale. This South American nation produces one-third of all coffee on Earth.

Brazil produced an impressive 2,592,000 metric tons of coffee beans in 2016 alone. The country is credited with being the highest producer of coffee for nearly two centuries. Vietnam comes in at number two in production, with 1,650,000 metric tons of coffee beans being produced in 2016.

The other two types of coffee beans used are Liberica and Excelsa. Liberica beans are rare and characterized by their strong, smoky flavor. Excelsa beans grow in the same places as Liberica, namely Southeast Asia and Africa, but feature a more sweet and fruity flavor. There are countless subvarieties of these four main beans from each coffee-producing country.

It may come as a surprise that caffeine levels depend on the roast. Lightly roasted beans have considerably more caffeine than their darker-roasted counterparts. Since caffeine is a natural feature of coffee beans, beans roasted for a shorter interval of time retain more caffeine.

Dark roast beans have far less caffeine. Since dark roasts require a longer roasting process, less caffeine remains once the process is done. This results in a far less energizing coffee bean but a more boldly flavored and aromatic cup of java.

Coffee ranges in price from incredibly cheap to worth its weight in gold, and the most expensive coffee in the world costs $600 per pound. The expensive variant, named Kopi Luwak, comes from Indonesia and the way they arrive at their taste is quite fascinating. Endemic to the country is a cat-like animal called the "native Asian palm civet" that eats coffee beans before excreting them.

Farmers then collect the animal droppings and clean them before roasting them. This produces a coffee unlike any other, with a smooth, full-body flavor and intense aroma. Plus, the palm civet is picky about the beans it eats, so Kopi Luwak is also produced with higher quality beans on average.

(To find a place that might sell Kopi Luwak beans, discover the 15 most popular independent coffee shops in America.)

It may seem that many regions produce coffee but the United States doesn't have a large agricultural imprint and only a few areas are capable of production. Since coffee grows best near the equator, most of the country is unable to provide the proper climate and soil conditions for coffee trees to flourish.

Thanks to its proximity to the equator and subsequent growing conditions, Hawaii is the leading American coffee producer. The Aloha state produces the Kona Typica variety of coffee beans. Known for its balanced and slightly floral flavor, it tends toward a nutty cocoa taste when dark roasted. Hawaii has in-country competition, however, as California recently began growing and selling small batches of premium coffee beans.

While espresso is a common method of coffee consumption and a symbol of the Italian love for quick coffee, its origins are relatively recent. The first coffee machine was created by a French inventor named Louis Bernard Rabaut in 1822. Although the groundwork of the espresso-based phenomenon of modern coffee shops is credited to Achille Gaggia in 1938.

A coffee shop owner and inventor, Gaggia sought to create an automated way of making espresso, something that was previously made by hand. To accomplish this, Gaggia experimented with different techniques before finding success with a piston-powered espresso machine. Using levers to manually press hot water through ground coffee beans, the espresso machine was born, paving the way for places like Starbucks.

Coffee may be a tasty, enlivening beverage, but it also has numerous health benefits, one of which is that it may help you live longer or, at the very least, keep your mind crisp until a later age. According to various studies, regular coffee consumption can prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease by reducing the amount of beta-amyloid in the brain.

The owners of the longest-living cat on record credited her longevity to coffee. Topping out at an incredible 38 years, the Guinness World Record holder named Crème Puff started every day with a meal of coffee, eggs, bacon, and broccoli. Even if you're not a cat, coffee has also been shown to reduce inflammation and lower your risk of cancer. (If you're looking for greasier food trivia, discover fast food facts everyone should know.)