5 Things You May Not Know About Coffee

• Scientists have discovered more than 800 different aromatic compounds in coffee.
• Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world (oil is the first.)
• One coffee tree yields less than half a kilo of coffee per year.
• In days gone by, Turkish bridegroom had to promise that they would always provide their new wives with coffee.

These internet fact lists are addictive. I ran across one this morning that contained all of the above facts about coffee. It had some interesting tidbits of information. Sadly, none of their sources were cited. However, one “fact” stood out to me as counter intuitive.

• Espresso Coffee has just one third of the caffeine content of ordinary coffee.

So I did a little research of my own and came up with this interesting summary of a study conducted by the University of Florida. They sampled coffee from several major retailers and found that in a 24 oz. sample the caffeine content ranged from 221mg caffeine to 367mg. Now even at the high end, 376mg, that is only about 16mg/oz of caffeine. The same study tested espresso shots ranging in size from 1.4 oz. to 1.9oz. and found the caffeine content ranged from 75mg all the way to 165mg. So the lowest caffeine content they measured was 53.5mg/oz. in espresso! So needless to say you might be getting less caffeine per beverage, but you are ingesting it much faster than you are with the regular brewed cup of coffee. It’s my guess that this rapid ingestion is what produces espresso’s famous jolt.

The entire list of coffee facts can be found here.

The PDF summary of the University of Florida’s study is here.

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