• Basic facts about coffee

Civilization’s love affair with coffee is ages old with roots that trace back almost 2000 years to Eastern Africa and the coastal regions of the Gulf of Arabia, where the coffee plants grew and flourished. This plant’s potency was recognized by Ethiopian herders who noticed a boost in energy when they harvested and ate the berries. Using this plant, Arab traders later developed a boiled drink—qahwa, which roughly translates as “prevents sleep.” This drink became widely popular such that in 1471, what is commonly though to be the world’s first coffee shop, Kiva Han, was opened by the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople. Today, coffee is surpassed only by oil as the world’s most widely traded commodity.

• Varieties—Of the 25 varieties of coffea, the tree from which coffee beans are harvested, most coffee drinkers are most familiar with two of these: Coffea arabica and Coffea robusta. The arabica bean commands well over two-thirds of the world’s coffee production, including hard-to-find varietals, such as Jamaican Blue Mountain & Kona (which Steamers proudly includes on its menu!) The robusta bean, while higher in caffeine, is seldom consumed by itself, due to its bitter and acidic flavour.

• Popularity—According to the Coffee Association of Canada, coffee is the most popular beverage consumed on a daily basis in Canada. Canadians drink 40 million cups of coffee a day.

• Health benefits—A healthy diet is all about moderation, including coffee intake. Research by leading medical centres suggests that moderate consumption of coffee can be beneficial to your health. Drinking from 2–4 cups of coffee daily may lower the risk of colon cancer by 25%, gallstones (45%), cirrhosis of the liver (80%), and Parkinson’s Disease (50–80%). It can even reduce the incidence of asthma by 25%. That makes it one of the best-tasting medicines around! (Source: Mayo Clinic, Harvard School of Public Health, and the U.S. Veterans Administration