Facts About The Daily Grind

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-- Coffee is one of the most valuable products in world trade, in many years second in value only to oil as a source of foreign exchange to developing countries.

-- A mature coffee tree will produce 1 to 11/2 pounds of coffee per growing season. It takes 2,000 hand-picked Arabica coffee cherries to make a roasted pound of coffee -- or approximately 4,000 beans.

-- Brazil produces about one-third of the coffee in the world, twice as much as Colombia and Vietnam, which vie for second position. Indonesia, Mexico, India, Guatemala and Ethiopia are also major producers.

-- In 2000, the United States imported 21-million bags (132 pounds each) of coffee. The largest suppliers were Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Vietnam and Guatemala. The total value was $1.7-billion.

-- 52 percent of the adult population of the United States over 18 years of age drinks coffee every day.

-- Americans drink some 300-million cups of coffee a day, consuming, on average, 3.3 cups.

-- 35 percent of coffee drinkers drink it black; 62 percent add a sweetener and/or creamer.

-- The number of coffeehouses across America, not counting kiosks and carts without seating, was about 8,000 in 2001, compared to 5,400 in 1996.

-- In Italy, coffee mixed with steamed milk picked up the name cappuccino because its color resembled the color of a Capuchin monk's pointed hood, which Italians called cappuccino.

-- Coffee is believed to have originated in Ethiopia.

-- In ancient times, when coffee was shipped from the port of Mocha in Yemen to destinations all over the world, the word mocha became synonymous with Arabian coffee. The Dutch combined Arabian coffee with coffee grown in the island of Java, thus making popular the first coffee blend -- Mocha Java.

-- In 1650, there were no coffee houses in Europe. By 1700, there were 2,000 coffee houses in London alone.

-- Drinking coffee became a form of protest against British taxation of tea in colonial America. John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, saying after the Boston Tea Party that it was unpatriotic to drink tea and he was going have to get used to liking coffee.

-- In 1886, former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend Maxwell House, after the hotel in Nashville, Tenn., where it's served.

-- In 1901, Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago invents the first soluble "instant" coffee.

-- In 1903, German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turns a batch of ruined coffee beans over to researchers, who perfect the process of removing caffeine from the beans without destroying the flavor. He markets it under the brand name Sanka (a contraction of sans caffeine). Sanka is introduced to the United States in 1923.

-- In 1938, the Nestle company markets the first freeze-dried coffee -- Nescafe -- in Switzerland.

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Credit: St. Petersburg Times

Sources: World Book Americas Edition, National Coffee Association of U.S.A., including its 2002 National Coffee Drinking Trends survey; International Coffee Organization; Specialty Coffee Association of America; National Public Radio interview with Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds; Donut Gallery; Washington Post. Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.