coffee

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Drink made from the roasted and ground beanlike seeds found inside the red berries of any of several species of shrubs, originally native to Ethiopia and now cultivated throughout the tropics. It contains a stimulant, caffeine. (Genus Coffea, family Rubiaceae.)

Cultivation
The shrub, naturally about 5 m/17 ft high, is pruned to about 2 m/7 ft; it is fully fruit-bearing in 5 or 6 years, and lasts for 30 years. Coffee grows best on frost-free hillsides with moderate rainfall. The world's largest producers are Brazil, Colombia, and Côte d'Ivoire; others include Indonesia (Java), Ethiopia, India, Hawaii, and Jamaica. The Association of Coffee Producing Countries (ACPC) was founded in 1993 to represent its 28 members, of whom the 14 ratified members produce over 60% of world coffee supply. Since the 1990s the world coffee market has suffered from over-supply, and in September 2001 the price of coffee sank to its lowest level in three decades as the ACPC scrapped a failed buffer-stock scheme. Tens of thousands of labourers were laid off in Latin America as coffee prices fell below production costs.

History
Coffee drinking began in Arab regions in the 14th century but did not become common in Europe until three hundred years later, when the first coffee houses were opened in Vienna, and soon after in Paris and London. In the American colonies, coffee became the substitute for tea when tea was taxed by the British.

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