Coffee drinking then and now: research continues to better understand this ubiquitous beverage

Excerpt

Coffee drinking has a long history. The first mention of the coffee bean is from Ethiopia, where it was eaten, rather than roasted, crushed, and brewed [ 1]. Coffee as a drink was first described in Yemen, consumed by Sufism religious observants to energize them for marathon episodes of praying [ 1]. The first described commercial plantations were also in Yemen, export of the beans to Egypt and Istanbul being through the port of Mocha. For a time, Istanbul was the unofficial world capital of coffee drinking. Coffee initially reached Europe with Ottoman military actions, and coffee drinking soon became an established custom in Germany, France, and England, flourishing in the coffee house trade [ 1]. Observers of the time in England, in the early seventeenth century, favorably compared coffee houses, with the taverns they partly replaced. The coffee houses were said to be characterized by civility and engaging discourse, the taverns by dulled wits, drunkenness, and violence. With time, the United States became the major world consumer, although coffee drinking is internationally ubiquitous. A morning Starbucks queue snaking across the pavement has become a visual emblem of US cities. It is perhaps surprising that after nearly five centuries of coffee drinking, there remain important gaps in the knowledge of the pharmacology and medical effects of coffee drinking. The manuscript by Jennifer Butler, David Jardin, and colleagues, from New Zealand [ 2], successfully addresses some of these deficiencies. …