History and Production of Coffee and its Presence in the United States

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Ever since its discovery, coffee has continued to spread its bitter or sweet taste all over the world. When taking a look at coffee’s journey from its simple beginnings, to its complex processing, and to its extensive use and consumption, one cannot help but be amazed at how prosperous and vital it has become American foodways.
Coffee’s backgrounds are surprisingly diverse. Many of the characteristics, as well as the credit for its distribution, have come from several different cultures. For example, the word “coffee” is devised from the Arabic root word qahwah (Kaye 557). Kaye continues to explain how although the etymology originally derives from qahwah, the evolution to today’s word “coffee” is also greatly influenced by the phonetics of the Turk word kahva and African word kaffa (557-558). The origin of coffee, location-wise, is agreed on dating back to the 9th century in the mountains of Ethiopia, from there, it spread to the rest of the world (Mangal 1). Coffee gained more popularity by the 15th century when it was introduced to Persia, Egypt, Northern Africa, and Turkey by Muslims, and later introduced to Europe and Asia by the Dutch in the 17th Century (Mangal 2). Finally, coffee first spread to North America when French settlers brought its seeds to the Caribbean in the early 1700s (Rice 558).
Coffee-growing is relatively easy. Mangal lists the five procedures needed to plant coffee trees: Prepare the land, Plant windbreaks, Mark out the rows, Establish shade trees, and Irrigation (22). All can be done by the average citizen with not much agricultural experience. Some places, like Wattles Farm community garden in Hollywood, CA, offer three-hour tours of their coffee plantation, where they teach these principles to even...

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...sumption in the world has been growing at an average annual rate of 2.5% in the past 12 years." LexisNexis® Academic & Library Solutions. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Kaye, Alan S. "The etymology of "coffee"." Journal of the American Oriental
Society (1986):557-558.
Kwok, Yenni. "World Most Expensive Coffee." Time . Time Inc., 2 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
Mangal, S K. Coffee. Gene-Tech Books, (2007).
Okunade, Albert A. "Functional forms and habit effects in the US demand for coffee."
Applied economics 24.11 (1992):1203-1212.
Rice, Robert A. "A PLACE UNBECOMING: THE COFFEE FARM OF NORTHERN
LATIN AMERICA*." Geographical review 89.4 (1999):554-579.
Spurrier, Jeff. "How to grow your own coffee: It's easy, sort of." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2013. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
“Starbucks Investor Relations." Starbucks.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.

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