Do You Know the Real Story of How Coffee Was Discovered?

Despite petty squabbles about "where" and "when", most agree that coffee had been used as a beverage and/or food in Ethiopia long before the stories of its "discovery' began to circulate. With that in mind, however, no self-respecting coffee site would be complete without including the fable about how coffee was discovered.
In Ethiopia, there was an excellent goat herder named Kaldi, who suddenly awakened from a rather distressing dream to discover his goats behaving quite conspicuously. One of his old bucks was kicking up dust and cavorting around like a kid goat and the rest of the herd, well they just weren’t at all themselves. (in a good way!)

Upon further investigation he discovered that they were quickly and happily consuming the berries of a native bush. Still recovering from his depressing dream, Kaldi, pinching himself to make sure he really was awake, decided that what’s obviously good for the goat must be good for the goat herder. He thus descended upon the bush with abandon, gulping berries with unbridled enthusiasm!

Soon he became full of vigor, completely forgetting his bad dream, and joined in the happy dance with his goats. It would have been a sad thing that day if Kaldi had taken this discovery to his grave but, thankfully, fate took a much kinder twist.

One fine day a monk happened by to discover a mesmerizing ballet of sorts going on with Kaldi and his goats. In his astonishment, he questioned Kaldi in regards to the origin of such riotous celebration. Kaldi joyfully shared the story of the bush and the magical berries.

The monk, being a wise old soul, perceived the magical enlightening berries as a divine revelation of sorts, a gift from God as it were, solving his problem of falling sound asleep during meditation. He saw it as a way to help his brothers solve similar problems with focus and concentration desperately needed during long hours on the... uh... the internet! Yeh, that's it!

He then spent many days experimenting with the cleaning, drying, and grinding of the berries and the making of a “tea”. Thus, Kaldi and the wise old monk, however inadvertently, gave the priceless gift of  Friday's Coffee to the world!


Well the story went something like that.

Raise Your Mugs,

fridayscoffee.com

5 Health Reasons To Drink Your Coffee

We love our coffee!  That goes without saying, it tastes great, perks us up and makes everyone else bearable on a Monday morning.  But the immediate benefits of coffee are not the only reasons to love it.

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D., Associate Nutrition Editor at EatingWell Magazine has given us five health reasons that we should not stop drinking coffee.  Here they are:
1. It protects your heart:Moderate coffee drinkers (1 to 3 cups/day) have lower rates of stroke than noncoffee drinkers, an effect linked to coffee’s antioxidants. Coffee has more antioxidants per serving than blueberries, making it the biggest source of antioxidants in American diets. All those antioxidants may help suppress the damaging effect of inflammation on arteries. Immediately after drinking it, coffee raises your blood pressure and heart rate, but over the long term, it actually may lower blood pressure as coffee’s antioxidants activate nitric acid, widening blood vessels.
2. It diverts diabetes: Those antioxidants (chlorogenic acid and quinides, specifically) play another role: boosting your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar. In fact, people who drink 4 or more cups of coffee each day may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to some studies. Other studies have shown that caffeine can blunt the insulin-sensitivity boost, so if you do drink several cups a day, try mixing in decaf occasionally.
3. Your liver loves it: OK, so the research here is limited, but it looks like the more coffee people drink, the lower their incidence of cirrhosis and other liver diseases. One analysis of nine studies found that every 2-cup increase in daily coffee intake reduced liver cancer risk by 43 percent. Again, it’s those antioxidants—chlorogenic and caffeic acids—and caffeine that might prevent liver inflammation and inhibit cancer cells.
4. It boosts your brain power: Drinking between 1 and 5 cups a day (admittedly a big range) may help reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as Parkinson’s disease, studies suggest. Those antioxidants may ward off brain cell damage and help the neurotransmitters involved in cognitive function to work better.
5. It helps your headaches: And not just the withdrawal headaches caused by skipping your daily dose of caffeine! Studies show that 200 milligrams of caffeine—about the amount in 16 ounces of brewed coffee—provides relief from headaches, including migraines. Exactly how caffeine relieves headaches isn’t clear. But scientists do know that caffeine boosts the activity of brain cells, causing surrounding blood vessels to constrict. One theory is that this constriction helps to relieve the pressure that causes the pain, says Robert Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology and director of the Headache Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical School.
So go ahead, drink up and live long!

What's in your cup?

Has your coffee drinking experience been so dismal that at some point,

in the course of your java sipping life,

you hesitated before raising the cup to your lips,

looked straight into the black liquid in total despair and thought to yourself...

"It looks like coffee. It smells like coffee."

"I want it to taste good!"

"It would be nice if it tasted GREAT!"

"For crying out loud... I  JUST WANT  IT  TO  TASTE  LIKE  REAL  COFFEE !!!"

Sip sip sip.

?@%!   Disgusting!

You know what I'm talking about.

Well my friends you're not alone. You're not in some kind of re-occurring coffee nightmare.

You're ok.

Just relax.

I'm here to help.

Friday's Coffee is my true personal love affair with the beverage that we all love so much

and the search that eventually led to fulfillment in drinking this wonderful black brew the way it should be.

There was a lot to learn but it was well worth it.

The journey took me down several interesting side roads which made for some fun, laughs and adventure.

I'm happy to be able to share it with you.

All the best,

Dave