I Love My Latte

The story of coffee begins some time in the 9th century in Ethiopia where beans were cultivated by Ethiopian Highlanders. Coffee expanded it's reach into Northern Africa through Arab traders. For the first time, Coffee was mass-cultivated and the humble beans began their first circle of the globe by entering the Indian and European marketplaces.

Coffee's first stop in Europe was Venice, Italy during the 15th or 16th centory, brought in by Venetian merchants who traded heavily with the Muslims of North Africa across the sea. Coffee and it's cousin Cocoa became the exclusive drinks of the wealthy. Coffee was spread across Europe and to the Americas by the French colonists who founded coffee plantations in the West Indies.

In the early 1700's, coffee seeds were smuggled into Brazil and a hundred years later, Brazil would cultivate coffee as a commercial commodity. Coffee became a drink of the masses instead of the wealthy. For many years in the 19th and 20th century, Brazil was the world's largest producer of coffee and had almost a monopoly on the trade.

Today, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaraqua, Indonesia and Vietnam all have large scale productions of coffee.

Though coffee is grown all over the world, each region offers a unique and different taste to the world's favorite beverage.

Perhaps the single most revolutionary event in the world of home coffee brewing was the advent of the Coffee Pods and K-Cup systems. To put it simply, coffee pods are like tea bags with a single serving of coffee sealed in a wrapper. To brew a perfect cup of Espresso or pot of drip, simply remove the wrapper, place the pod where you would normally place your grounds and brew. It's simple, it's easy, it's quick and clean up is easier as you won't end up with spent grounds all over everywhere. Pods are available in both regular and decaf and are sized for home espresso machines or regular drip coffee pots. Make sure you purchase the correct size for your machine.

The K-cup system is a similar system that was exclusively developed by Keurig. Their single cup brewing system uses a pre-packaged sealed cup that fits in easily to the top of the coffee maker. You simply close the lid and turn it on. Clean up is equally a breeze. K-Cups are available in a wide multitude of flavors and by many different coffee vendors. In addition, Tea and Hot Chocolate are also available and are brewed just as easily. K-Cups are primarily a drip-coffee system however they do offer a small cup size with more intensity of flavor which you can use in place of espresso.