Thursday, August 17, 2006


one world under specialty coffee's passionate sway

"coffee consumption has risen rapidly across the u.k. and u.s. especially in recent years. americans now drink 3.2 cups per day on average, while britain's coffee market last year overtook that for standard tea -- long considered a 'national drink'."

it's true, i'm thrilled -- not because i hate those dead dry leaves (tea drinkers, i kid, i kid!) -- but because the true end of the so-called "coffee crisis" and coffee poverty will not occur just due to a temporary up-market such as we have now, but rather in increasing global consumption long-term and improving quality. we can now, as i have been predicting for years, safely add the u.k. to the list of formerly tea-drinking nations, along with japan.

korea, taiwan, india and china are coming coffee soon, i kid you not: the first 2 in 5 years, the others probably within 15. of course, much of the modern world as we know it today was invented in the old british coffeehouses, so in a certain sense, the british are simply returning to their roots, bored with their darjeeling flirtation.

ok, enough tea-bashing (oh, i'm joking! joking!). the statistic above comes as part of an article noting a small (just 500 people) preliminary study about heart health effects with coffee.

it seems like a negative study, but i have to say that if you take 500 non-exercising, overweight men of a certain age, the risk of heart attack is high, period. still, i think it's safe to say that the much larger, long-term harvard study the article also mentions is much more reliable.

so i'm tempted to ignore this one from costa rica as an outlier until i have more confirmation.

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posted by fortune | 7:29 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 3 comments