Skip to main content

Coffee basics for aliens



October 2, 2012

So you’re sitting on a bench kind of putting off going to work or at least steeling yourself for it, and a spaceship lands. Out comes some sort of creature. It/he/she sits down and asks what liquid refreshment you are absorbing. “It’s coffee,” you say. “What’s that?” it/he/she asks.

OK, play along. You buy the premise, you buy the bit. As most beings in the known universe do know, coffee is a brewed beverage with a distinct aroma and flavor. It’s prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffea plant. The beans are inside coffee ‘cherries’ that grow on trees. For most, coffee has a stimulating effect due to its high caffeine content. They don’t say coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise, for nothing!

When it comes to production, coffee comes from nearly 80 countries on this planet, but most comes from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras.

When it comes to consumption, it looks like this: the European Union, the United States, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Canada, Ethiopia, and the Philippines.

When it comes to loyalty to packaged coffee – for those aliens out there that’s ground coffee in, well, a package you take back to your home/home planet and prepare yourself – according to our 2012 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, here’s the top-10 ranked packaged coffee brands:

1.     Dunkin’
2.     Starbucks
3.     Green Mountain
4.     Folgers
5.     Peets
6.     Allegro
7.     Maxwell House
8.     Chock Full ‘O Nuts
9.     Seattle’s Best
10.  Caribou

Whether you call it “coffee,” “café,” or “joe.” Or “ink,” or “java” or “mud,” for coffee drinkers of all universes, it turns out that a morning without coffee is, well, sleep!

Popular posts from this blog

Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority Relaxes Coffee Export Restrictions

  Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority Relaxes Coffee Export Restrictions  Addis Fortune November 14, 2020 Coffee traders can now send all grades of coffee beans to the global market, in contrast to the previous law that allowed them only to export the top four grades of coffee, according to a new directive issued by the Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority. Farmers and exporters can also directly ship the beans without going through the trading floors of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). The new scheme allows fifth grade and under grade (UG) coffee beans, which up until now have only been supplied to the local market, to be exported. Coffee quality experts at respective regional offices of the Authority will determine the grade of the coffee. The Authority at its head office issues permits to the exporters every year, while regional offices are delegated to grant export permit to farmers who have at least two hectares of farmland. The Authority sets standard prices on a...

Climate-hit Ethiopia shifts coffee uphill

Caffeine high? Climate-hit Ethiopia shifts coffee uphill Elias Gebreselassie Thomson Reuters Foundation June 3, 2018 HAMBELA, Ethiopia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Few countries take coffee as seriously as Ethiopia - and that’s not only because it prides itself as being the source of the prized Arabica bean. But rising temperatures and worsening drought linked to climate change are now hitting production - and fixing that may require moving many Ethiopian coffee fields uphill, experts say. Aside from its cultural value, coffee is Ethiopia’s single largest source of export revenue, worth more than $860 million in the 2016-2017 production year. But coffee-growing areas in eastern Ethiopia have seen the average temperature climb 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past three decades, according to the Environment, Climate Change and Coffee Forest Forum (ECCCFF), an Ethiopian non-governmental organization. That has caused stronger drought ...

The saga of the Starbucks-Ethiopia affair

Note :   The most recent developments on Starbucks vs. Ethiopia are listed below: January 9, 2012:  Has trademarking doubled Ethiopian farmers' income?   January 5, 2012:   Starbucks to showcase use of a QR code to trace Organic Ethiopia Sidamo® Coffee   ========= "When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. When the same two elephants make love, the grass still suffers." - derivative of an old African saying Life, before and after the agreement, remains unaffected for farmer Gemede Robe, the icon of the Starbucks vs. Ethiopia dispute. He lives in the Borena zone of the Oromia region, one of the many coffee growing zones of the country. (Photo: Courtesy of Oxfam America) By Wondwossen Mezlekia May 31, 2010 The coffee trademark dispute between Starbucks and Ethiopia officially ended exactly three years ago. In June 2007, the giant coffee chain and the government of Ethiopia declared their agreement "to work together to license...