Grounds for drinking java

by Barbara Quinn

Knight Ridder Newspapers

"SO, WHEN DID you start drinking coffee?" I asked my friend after she had worked on a guest ranch in Colorado for a year. "When I had to start work at 6:45 in the morning and there was 8 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature was five degrees," she said.

Good answer. Coffee is the most abundantly consumed stimulant in the world. But it was not invented by a modern sage named Starbuck.

More...

Coffee futures surge following large quake

Coffee futures skyrocketed 13 percent to a four-year high following reports of an earthquake on the west coast of Colombia.

BY CLAUDIA CARPENTER

Bloomberg News

Coffee prices in New York surged 13 percent to a four-year high after a report of an earthquake in Colombia, the world's third-largest grower.

A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck the west coast of Colombia, destroying about 19 homes in the port city of Buenaventura, 220 miles west of Bogota, the Associated Press said.

Coffee prices have soared 28 percent this month amid reduced supply from Brazil, which is the world's biggest coffee grower.

More...

Coffee Rises to 3-Month High After Inventories Drop

By Stephen Farr

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Coffee prices jumped to a three-month high in London after U.S. inventories fell and an earthquake struck Colombia, the world's third-largest grower.

U.S. green coffee stockpiles dropped 3.9 percent last month to 5.4 million bags, the Green Coffee Association said yesterday. Prices in New York closed at a four-year high after a 6.7- magnitude quake struck the west coast of Colombia.

More...

Honduran bean counters want to lift coffee quality

By GUSTAVO PALENCIA

LA FE, HONDURAS - Olvin Castellanos, the son of a small coffee producer from a remote, mountainous region of Honduras, takes a noisy swig of coffee and swirls it around his mouth as he judges the flavour, aroma and quality of the bean.

Castellanos, 25, from the Aguila region in the east of the Central American nation, is one of 22 students in the country's first coffee-tasting school.

The School of Coffee-Tasters is part of a plan to improve the tarnished image of the country's coffee industry and to cash in on refined global tastes for gourmet brews by offering higher-quality beans.

More...

Regular or Decaf, Coffee May Ward Off Diabetes

Women's Coffee Drinking Habits Linked to Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk

By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News

Whether you take it with caffeine or without, drinking coffee regularly may help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.

Researchers found women who drank more than four cups of regular or decaffeinated coffee per day have significantly lower levels of a component of insulin than non-coffee drinkers. Higher levels are linked to the development of type 2 diabetes.

More...

Caffeine Withdrawal

Many of us don't just relish that first cup of joe in the morning—we need it. As this ScienCentral News video reports, a new study could wake up doctors to the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.

The world's most popular drug is something you could very well have in a cup in front of you next to your computer right now—caffeine.

"Caffeine is the world's most widely used mood-altering drug," says Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Some 80 percent of the population use caffeine on a daily basis. Caffeine is so available in our culture and society that many people consume coffee and soft drinks without the realization that they're actually involved in a drug self-administration behavior."

More...

S.F. coffee company donates to troops

Starbucks buckles

By KELLY NIX
The Salinas Californian

A Bay Area coffee company is donating 2,500 pounds of coffee to troops in Iraq after learning about a Salinas woman who was unable to get coffee giant Starbucks to donate the java.

In a Salinas Californian news article Saturday, Lucy Vega said Starbucks Coffee turned her down when she requested they send her brother Marine Lance Cpl. Adrian Jimenez, 19, and his battalion some coffee.

"I heard about it on KCBS (radio), and I said, 'Come on Starbucks, for crying out loud,'" said Jon Rogers, president of San Francisco Bay Coffee Company.

So Rogers called Vega and said the company would donate to her brother's battalion.

Meanwhile, Starbucks announced Tuesday it is donating 50,000 pounds of coffee to troops in Iraq in cooperation with the American Red Cross.

"I'm sure it was the result of the negative publicity they received from the story," said Jim Rogers, vice president of San Francisco Bay Coffee.

Starbucks didn't return three phone messages left Wednesday.

More...