Coffee: A Cultural Phenomenon

By Hannah Morgan

There are seven Starbucks’ in the Longview/Kelso area. There are even more local independent drive through and sit in coffee shops. While they all serve tea and blended drinks, the attraction for most customers is coffee.

“I go to Starbucks a few times a week,” Kenzie Fine 10 said, “It’s good!”

Coffee, originally developed by the Ethiopians and grown in Arabia, was a carefully guarded secret for many years. However, some plants were smuggled to the Netherlands, and the Dutch colonies began growing it. Now coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages in the world.

Fifty percent of the world’s coffee is currently grown in South America, where the tropical climate is ideal for the coffee trees to grow. The trees can grow 15-30 feet in height, and can produce coffee berries for 10-20 years.

Coffee berries, or coffee cherries, generally have two coffee beans inside them. The fruit is hand picked, and then is either soaked to get rid of residue and dried in commercial dryers, or is just laid to dry in the sun for two to three weeks. The dried pulp is then removed so the bean can be processed.

So how does it get in your coffee cup? The beans are roasted, sorted and bagged. The bags are shipped to locales around the world, where the beans are ground up and brewed to preference. Beans can either be ground and brewed at home, or can be bought in a drinkable form from a coffee shop. Mr. Weber brews some coffee in his classroom every day.

“My mom makes it every morning, but I know how to make it too,” Chelsea Trefren 12 said, “I like using my travel mugs.”

The main drug in coffee, and the main reason for its consumption, is caffeine. A coffee bean has approximately 0.8-2.5% caffeine. Scientific studies have conflicting reports on whether coffee consumption has harmful or beneficial side effects.

Changing the type of filter used when brewing coffee can resolve some of the variations. Paper filters get rid of oily components associated with heart disease, while metal filters do not get rid of these components.

There are also different reports based on how much coffee is consumed. Moderate amounts of coffee have been shown to reduce risks of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, some forms of diabetes, and the antioxidants in coffee can prevent free radicals from causing cell damage.

On the other hand, too much caffeine can cause hyperglycemia, troubled breathing, and an increased risk of acid reflux disease.

Overall, Harvard School of Public Health has decided that the long term benefits of coffeeoutweigh the risks.  Also, coffee consumption has been shown to have no impact at all on the creation of cancerous tumors.

Socially, coffee was first used in religious ceremonies in the Middle East. That is quite contradictory to some modern religious doctrines, including the Mormon doctrine, which prohibit drinking coffee and other caffeinated drinks.

Coffeehouses themselves have existed for over 500 years. They originated in Mecca, Damascus, and Cairo; the first European coffee house was built in Venice, Italy, and the first coffeehouse in England still stands today.

The first American coffee houses were in Italian American immigrant communities, and became more wide spread as the 1960s developed. Before Starbucks mainstreamed the coffeehouse model, the Pacific Northwest already had a thriving cultural coffeehouse scene.

While some still go to coffeehouses to socialize, they do not order a latte or mocha.

“I don’t drink coffee,” Miranda Wilson 12 said, “I usually get a peppermint hot cocoa or half passion tea and half green tea [when I go to Starbucks].”

Coffee has proven to be a cultural phenomenon. Whether one is paying four dollars for a cappuccino or brewing at home, almost everyone is drinking it.