10 Coffee Facts for National Coffee Day
Today is National Coffee Day, and many coffee shops are offering freebies. We've got the next best thing: coffee facts to read while you wait in line!
1. After coffee beans are decaffeinated, coffee manufacturers sell the caffeine to soft drink makers and pharmaceutical companies.
2. The average U.S. worker spends $1,092 on coffee each year.
3. Starbucks is named for Captain Ahab’s first mate. The founders had considered naming it Pequod's, after Ahab’s ship.
4. Chock Full O'Nuts coffee does not contain nuts. It's named for a chain of nut stores the founder converted into coffee shops.
5. According to legend, Honore de Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day to fuel his writing.
6. In 1932, Brazil couldn't afford to send its athletes to the Olympics in Los Angeles. So they loaded their ship with coffee and sold it along the way.
7. In 1674, the "Women's Petition Against Coffee" said it was turning British men into "useless corpses" and proposed a ban for those under 60.
8. Coffee was banned in Mecca in 1511. It was believed to stimulate radical thinking and hanging out.
9. The first webcam watched a coffee pot. It allowed researchers at Cambridge to monitor the coffee situation without leaving their desks.
Quentin Stafford-Fraser/Wikimedia Commons
10. In 2008, Annamarie Ausnes received a life-saving kidney from an unlikely source: her Starbucks barista Sandie Andersen.