Talk:Coffee

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Former good article Coffee was one of the Sports and recreation good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.


Origin of coffee[edit]

I saw the discussions here on the origin of coffee. If I can add a bit (perhaps useful for the page, perhaps not)

-The coffee genus grows wild in the rain forests of tropical Africa but not further north. Coffea arabica is a natural hybrid, with as most likely parents probably C. eugenioides (from the highlands of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya) and C. canephora. The hybrid originates from southwest Ethiopia or neighbouring Sudan. The evidence that cultivation began in this region is indirect only: southwest Ethiopia is one of eight regions in the world where agriculture was independently developed, and is the origin of crops such as ensete. From here coffee spread to Harar in Ethiopia, and to Yemen.

-The older certified reference to coffee is from the mid 1400 by which time it was well established as a drink in Yemen, and widely grown. But when this first started is not known. The intricate ceremony attached to drinking in Ethiopia, and the close relation between 'Kaffa' (the old name for the region in southwest Ethiopia) and the Arab word for coffee, make it plausible but not proven that coffee was consumed here first. In any case, it is difficult to see the plant spreading north in regions where it does not grow naturally if it was not used locally.

-In the Kaffa language, the coffee plant is called 'bunno'. Elsewhere in Ethiopia the different languages use a very similar word. The same word is used in two 9th century manuscripts, and it is probable that the crop existed and had spread by that time, but whether it was eaten or drunk is not known. E.g. see J. Crawford, 1852, History of Coffee, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Volume 15, p. 50, and the note added by Dr. Beke on p. 57, which may be the source for many of the later discussions.

ABZebra (talk) 20:12, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

I feel it's just racism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Resourcer1 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
@ABZebra: I wasnt aware Kaffa has its own language. @Resourcer1: This is not considered proper discussion. Zekenyan (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
Qahwa is the Arabic word and it has a meaning, it was (and can still be) used for all kinds of beverages that could alter your state, including intoxicants. There's zero evidence the form with f appears until it was borrowed much, much later. Ogress 14:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Ethiopia has 77 official languages. Kaffa is a north-oromitic language (or language division), also called Gonga. There are several wikipedia pages on this topic. The word bunn is used for the plant and the bean, and is also used in the oldest arabic writing believed to relate to coffee, Avicenna 'The canon of medicin' ABZebra (talk) 09:46, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

I would make some suggestions for changes to the wikipedia article

'Etymology' The two main references should be: The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, Bennett Weinberg and Bonnie Bealer, Routledge 2001 (they provide a balanced discussion of the origin of the word), and The Etymology of "Coffee": The Dark Brew, Alan Kaye, Journal of the American Oriental Society 106 (3):557-558 (1986) . A relation to 'khat' has been sugested, or the word 'quwwah' (arabic for 'strength') has also been suggested as the origin of the word 'coffee' (ref: Weinberg & Bealer). The Ethiopian area Kaffa has been suggested to be the origin of the word, but Kaye (ref Kaye) argues that the arabic word is not related to this. Kaye doea argue for a relation to the semitic word 'qhh' (meaning 'dark'). The article should mention that in the Gunga language of the Kaffe area in Ethiopia, where the plant grows in the wild, the word 'bunno' or variations thereof are used for the plant and bean, and this is used in many other Ethiopian languages. Ref: J. Crawford, 1852, History of Coffee, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Volume 15, p. 50, and the note added by Dr. Beke on p. 57,

'Legendary accounts' I would remove the words "though no direct evidence has been found indicating where in Africa coffee grew or who among the native populations might have used it as a stimulant or even known about it, earlier than the 17th century.[6]" which is out of place in a section on mythology, and is not in the stated reference [6] (who does argue for an older but undated ethiopian origin).

'Historical transmission' (funny title for the subsection but I get the point). Add 'The oldest still existing document (in a later Latin translation) believed to refer to coffee is Avicenna (aka Ibn Sina), the canon of medicin, approximately 1000AD, where the word 'bunchum' is used. It may refer to an even older but lost document by Rhazes, around 900AD, called 'The continent', where 'bunn' is used for the plant and 'bunchum' for a drink derived from the plant. (ref Weinberg and Bealer, above)

In the pre-amble at the top of the page, it says "the plant is native to subtropical Africa and some islands in southern Asia.[2]": It is tropical not subtropical, and the islands are Comoros, Madagascar, and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, not southern Asia. I alos recommend to change the reference, perhaps to http://www.volcanocafe.org/volcano-coffee/ (but others could be found), as the ref [2] contains a number of factual errors.

ABZebra (talk) 10:42, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 May 2016[edit]

There is a spelling mistake of "coffee", which is in the second line of the article of coffee.(The genus Coffea is native to tropical Africa) Please change "coffea" to "coffee". YueLee-Beijing (talk) 08:20, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Not a mistake. genus Coffea is correct. . . Mean as custard (talk) 08:27, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: You may want to take a look at genus coffea. -AMMESSAGE 08:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Effects of roasting on caffeine content[edit]

The following two lines seem to contradict one another. Which is correct?

"Roasting is the last step of processing the beans in their intact state. During this last treatment, while still in the bean state, more caffeine breaks down above 235 °C. Dark roasting is the utmost step in bean processing removing the most caffeine."

"The degree of roast has an effect upon coffee flavor and body. Darker roasts are generally bolder because they have less fiber content and a more sugary flavor. Lighter roasts have a more complex and therefore perceived stronger flavor from aromatic oils and acids otherwise destroyed by longer roasting times.[90] Roasting does not alter the amount of caffeine in the bean, but does give less caffeine when the beans are measured by volume because the beans expand during roasting."

homeslyce (talk) 11:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

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