| It will be lovely in your Coffee, TM! While cane sugar is grown in those latitudes, sugar beets can be grown anywhere most other crops can be grown. So, coffee it is! Here are 20 facts about coffee: 1. Coffee is the second most traded product in the world after petroleum.
2. Each year some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide. Most of which is hand picked.
3. Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide with almost all of them along the equator.
4. The world's largest coffee producer is Brazil with over 3,970 million coffee trees and is responsible for 30 to 40 % of total world output. Colombia comes in second with around two thirds of Brazil's production.
5. It takes five years for a coffee tree to reach maturity.
6. The average yield from one tree is the equivalent of one roasted pound of coffee.
7. With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.
8. Most coffee is transported by ships with approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the coffee each year.
9. Germany is the world's second largest consumer of coffee.
10. 27% of U.S. coffee drinkers and 43% of German drinkers add a sweetener to their coffee.
11. People who buy coffee primarily at drive through windows on their way to work will spend as much as 45 hours a year waiting in line.
12. The average person who buys coffee outside the office to consume at work will spend the equivalent value of a round trip plane ticket to Florida every year.
13. The first coffee house in Europe opened in Venice in 1683, while coffee was available in Europe as early as 1608, mostly for the rich.
14. The expression "a cup of Joe" was first coined during WWII, when American servicemen (known as G.I. Joes) were identified as big coffee drinkers.
15. The popular trend towards flavored coffees originated in the United States during the 1970's.
16. October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan
17. Most of the world's coffee is grown by small-scale coffee farming families
18. The global coffee industry makes about $60 billion annually. Coffee farmers earn as little as 4 cents a pound for the coffee they pick by hand.
19. 25 million families around the world work in the coffee-fields and totally depend on the coffee crop as their only source of income.
20. A Belgian living in Guatemala invented the first instant coffee in 1906 and later immigrated to the United States. His name, ironically enough, was George Washington. And there we have it. For Ginny Annette and mnswgal,
 Thanks for playing everyone!! Maybe I should put the clues in earlier? I just like to give everyone lots of time to cogitate! I am also including a fun video I found on YouTube, that has lots more 'fun' facts about coffee. I tried to check out corn and grains, but it is difficult - their PR people aren't as aggressive as the coffee people, but I did find this:
In 2005, the U.S. produced 42 percent of the world's corn. Over 50 percent of the U.S. crop is produced in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska or Illinois. Other states in which corn is grown include Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Missouri. In 2005, over 58 percent of the U.S. corn crop was used for feed. The remaining U.S. crop was split between exports (25 percent) and food, seed or industrial uses such as ethanol production (17 percent). It is America's largest crop. No word on $ values. Corn is Canada's third largest grain crop (after wheat and barley) and the most important one in eastern Canada - with an annual Canadian production of approximately seven million tonnes of grain, produced on about one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land. About 200,000 hectares of corn are also grown for harvest as forage (whole-plant silage). About 70% of Canadian corn is grown in Ontario. Nancy. |
