4 COFFEE (Bean) Uses

Aaaah.  Coffee.  Who doesn't like the smell of a fresh cup of coffee first thing in the morning?  Fresh ground coffee beans are even better.

Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,and Africa. Once ripe, coffee "berries" are picked, processed, and dried to yield the seeds inside. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee.

The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherder who supposedly discovered coffee when his goats behaved strangely after eating from a coffee plant, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.

The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries around Mocha in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is now prepared. By the 16th century, it had

Roasted coffee beans - wikipedia

reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. Coffee seeds were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the seed. The first coffee smuggled out of the Middle East was by Sufi Baba Budan from Yemen to India in 1670. Before then, all exported coffee was boiled or otherwise sterilised. Portraits of Baba Budan depict him as having smuggled seven coffee seeds by strapping them to his chest. The first plants grown from these smuggled seeds were planted in Mysore. Coffee then spread to Italy, and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.

Did you know, coffee was the first food to be freeze-dried? Read on to learn more facts about coffee... after reading about its many uses!



The Many Uses of Coffee (Beans):


Reduce Fireplace Mess. Want to clean your fireplace without causing a dust storm? Wait until the embers are cool, sprinkle damp coffee grounds all over the ashes , let them sit for about 15 minutes and then scoop out the whole mess into a metal ash can. The coffee grounds cling to the ashes, so they don't spew dust nearly as much as they would otherwise.




Cure your headaches. Caffeine alleviates headaches acutely and is used medically for this purpose, generally in combination with a painkiller such as ibuprofen. A clinical trial in Illinois found that caffeine, which reduces the swelling of blood vessels, can reduce both the intensity and frequency of headaches. Subjects in one group were given caffeine alone, and 58 per cent reported complete relief. Subjects in the other group were given caffeine in combination with ibuprofen, and 70 saw symptoms disappear.

Reduce cellulite. Pricey cellulite creams almost always have one major ingredient in common: caffeine, which supposedly enhances fat metabolism, reducing the appearance of these fatty pockets under the skin. To make your own coffee cellulite treatment at home, mix warm used coffee grounds with coconut oil and rub it onto your skin in circular motions for a few minutes before rinsing.

Speed Up Composting.  Pour on coffee (or tea, or non-diet cola) to increase the bacterium population and help both soil and compost break down faster.

Get Shiny Hair. Who doesn't want shiny, healthy-looking hair? Coffee is often recommended as a simple, natural treatment to make hair extra-glossy. Brew up an extra-strong pot, let it cool and apply it to your dry, clean hair. Leave it on for at least twenty minutes, then rinse. Keep it up once a week or so for best results.

Health Benefits. Coffee has always been given a bad rap but thanks to the majority of studies, the health benefits have been increasing, giving coffee its well-deserved break. A cup of coffee a day (without sugar), can do the body good. A Japanese study in 2010 revealed that coffee consumption exerted a protective effect against type 2 diabetes. And the list goes on from there from other studies: Coffee may significantly cut your risk of Parkinson's disease, help protect you from Alzheimer's disease, lower risk of lethal prostate cancer, may be associated with decreased risk of kidney cancer, may lower colon cancer risk among women and so on and so on.

Natural Dye. The natural pigments in coffee make it a great natural dye for fabric, paper, Easter eggs - even your hair. Brush paper with strong brew and let it dry, or soak fabric items in hot coffee. The results won't be color-fast, and may bleed out onto other items, so it's best to use this on items that won't be washed very often if at all. Using coffee as a hair shine treatment, as previously mentioned, may temporarily lend a rich, dark tint to your hair.

Insect Repellant. Coffee has a very strong odour which many insects and animals do not like. In addition, it's been suggested that mosquitoes, ants, slugs and maggots all dislike the acidity of coffee and will stay away from areas where there is high concentration of acidic soil.

Pet Repellant. Pesky neighbour's cat or dog always up in your flowerbed? Sprinkling coffee grounds along with other powerful odour-emitting substances can keep those animals away. Most animals' sense of smell is much greater than ours, and while coffee that may smell great to us can smell very unpleasant to a hyper-sensitive-olfactory feline.

Eliminate Pet Odours.  Some pet owners have found they can remove pet odours from a room by heating a cupful of freshly ground coffee beans in a cast-iron skillet over low heat. As soon as the scent is released, remove the pan to the smelly room, and set it on a trivet. By the time the ground beans are cool, much of the pet odour should be gone.

Fix Furniture. Is that small crack, nick, or gouge all you can see each time you look at your dark wood dresser? Reach for the instant coffee. Mix 2-3 tablespoons with just enough water to make a thick paste; for wood with red tones, add a few drops of iodine. Put the paste on a small putty knife or a disposable plastic knife and use it to fill the crack. Remove any excess around the edges with a barely damp cloth. Let the paste dry.

Pretty Vase Fillers. Stale or dirty coffee beans are still a thing of beauty. Use them as vase fillers, or in cups or jars full of pens and pencils. Not only are they pretty, they continue to smell good for quite a while, too.

Deodorize Your Car.  To keep your car smelling fresh and clean, open a small container filled with freshly ground coffee beans and place it where it won't get knocked over. The grounds will absorb any strong odours you bring into the car -- the smell of fast food, for example.

Fertilizer. Small amounts of coffee grounds can be added directly to top soil, especially on plants that like high acidity in the soil like azaleas or roses. Coffee is high in nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, potassium and other trace minerals, spreading around a thin layer of coffee grounds on your soil will allow a slow release of these minerals into your plants. Be aware of which plants like acidic soil (roses), and which plants don't (tomatoes).

Pin Cushion Filler. Dried, used coffee grounds are the perfect filler for homemade pin cushions. Just wrap them in some scrap cloth, tie it off with a rubber band and place the cloth in an egg cup or other small container. The grounds will keep your pins from rusting, too.

Grow Mushrooms. Used coffee grounds are an ideal medium to grow many kinds of mushrooms, including oyster mushrooms.The beauty of growing mushrooms on fresh coffee waste is that the substrate is already pasteurised by the coffee brewing process, so you can bypass the whole pasteurising step and get straight into the inoculating. Plus, spent coffee grounds are a huge waste resource, and are packed full of nutrients which your Oyster Mushrooms love to grow on.

Secret Recipe Ingredient. Just a little hint of coffee can be the ingredient that becomes your undisclosed "magic touch" in foods like chili, ice cream and chocolate cake. Use a little bit as a marinade for steaks and not only will it make them unbelievably tender, it'll also provide a hint of deep, smoky flavor. Recipes with coffee as a main or essential ingredient include Pumpernickel, Red-eye gravy, and Tiramisu, among others.
To give lamb stew a beautiful dark colour and great flavour, add one cup of black coffee to the stew pot about halfway through the cooking process.

Exfoliate Skin with a DIY Exfoliating Coffee Scrub!

Did You Know...

Sumatran kopi luwak farmer holds
civet feces with embedded coffee beans.
Sumatra, Indonesia
wikipedia

Kopi Luwak, or civet coffee, is the world’s most expensive coffee. It refers to the beans of coffee berries once they have been eaten and excreted by the Asian palm civet. So although kopi luwak is a form of processing rather than a variety of coffee, it has been called the most expensive coffee in the world with retail prices reaching €550 / US$700 per kilogramme. The price paid to collectors in the Philippines is closer to US$20 per kilogramme. The price of farmed (considered low-grade by connoisseurs) kopi luwak in large Indonesian supermarkets is from US$100 per kilogramme (five times the price of a high quality local arabica coffee). Genuine kopi luwak from wild civets is difficult to purchase in Indonesia and proving it is not fake is very difficult - there is little enforcement regarding use of the name "kopi luwak", and there's even a local cheap coffee brand named "Luwak", which costs under US$3 per kilogramme but is occasionally sold online under the guise of real kopi luwak.

Caffenol is a photographic alternative process whereby caffeine, sodium carbonate and optionally Vitamin C are used in aqueous solution as a film and print photographic developer.

Espresso is regulated by the Italian government because it is considered an essential part of their daily life. Speaking of espresso, the word espresso literally means "when something is forced out" and brewed espresso has 2.5% fat, while filtered coffee contains 0.6% fat!

self-stirring mug!

The name Cappuccino comes from the Capuchin friars, referring to the colour of their distinctive set of garments worn by them.

Originally invented in 1907, instant coffee rapidly gained in popularity in many countries in the post-war period, with Nescafé being the most popular product. Many consumers determined that the convenience in preparing a cup of instant coffee more than made up for a perceived inferior taste. Paralleling (and complementing) the rapid rise of instant coffee was the coffee vending machine, invented in 1947 and multiplying rapidly through the 1950s.

The best time for coffee is around 2pm since most people's energy levels, according to studies, are at their lowest around 2:15 pm.

The first webcam was invented to keep an eye on a coffee pot! First developed in 1991, a webcam was pointed at the Trojan Room coffee pot in the Cambridge University Computer Science Department. They didn't want to walk to the pot to find it empty, so they pointed a camera at it and streamed it over the web. The camera was finally switched off on August 22, 2001.

The final image captured by the camera can still be viewed at its homepage. The oldest webcam still operating is FogCam at San Francisco State University, which has been running continuously since 1994.

Seattle has the most number of coffee shops (per capita) in the U.S. - 1640 shops.

Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee commercially.

The lethal dose of coffee for an adult is 100 cups!

In 2011 Brazil was the world leader in production of green coffee, followed by Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia. Arabica coffee seeds are cultivated in Latin America, eastern Africa, Arabia, or Asia. Robusta coffee seeds are grown in western and central Africa, throughout southeast Asia, and to some extent in Brazil.

First Coffee cup Picture



Do you have a great use for coffee and/or its beans?  Let us know!