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In 1906 he started experiments and put his product, Red E Coffee, on the market in 1909. In 1938, Nestl?after being asked by Brazil to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses, invented freeze-dried coffee. Nescafe was developed and first introduced into Switzerland. Instant coffee really took off after 1956 when commercial television was introduced. The commercial breaks were too short a time in which to brew a cup of tea, but time enough for an instant coffee. The entrepreneurs of the coffee world like Nestl?nd General Foods realised this was their big chance and advertised their instant coffee during the breaks. In retaliation, the tea companies introduced the tea bag in a desperate bid to compete. The government took over the tea trade in Britain during the Second World War introducting rationing which continued until 1952. After the war, however, people didn't start drinking as much tea again as expected - they drank coffee instead. The modern-day espresso machine was perfected by Achilles Gagg ia in Italy in 1946. He managed to use a higher pressure than steam by using a spring powered lever system. Gaggia brought his revolutionary espresso machine to London in the 1950s and opened a mocha bar in Frith Street in Soho - hence the modern day coffee bar was born. The first pump driven espresso was produced in 1960 by Faema. Because of the economic importance of coffee exports, a number of Latin American countries made arrangements before World War 2 (1939-1945) to allocate export quotas so that each country would be assured a certain share of the coffee market. The first coffee quota agreement was arranged in 1940 and was adminstered by the Inter-American Coffee Board. It was not, however, until 1962 that the idea of establishing coffee export quotas on a worldwide basis was adopted. This was set up by the United Nations as the International Coffee Agreement. During the five-year period when this agreement was in effect, 41 exporting countries and 25 importing countries agreed to its terms. The agree ment was re-negotiated in 1968, 1976 and 1983. Participating nations failed to sign a new pact in 1989 and, as a result, world coffee prices plunged. There were a series of crop failures, most notably in Brazil in the early 1990s which meant that coffee prices increased dramatically. Only recently have prices begun to drop again. Coffee is the seed of a cherry from a tree which grows from sea level to approximately 6,000 feet in a narrow sub-tropical belt between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn around the world. There are typically about eight different stages that the humble coffee bean goes through in the process from being a humble seedling to being part of a freshly brewed cup. In this section we follow the life of the bean from being a part of the coffee plant, to being harvested, processed, exported, taste tested, blended, roasted, ground and finally brewed. We also look at some of the coffee substitutes that are sometimes used in the making of coffee and the processes that coffee has t o go through to be decaffeinated. Coffee comes from the Latin form of the genus Coffea, a member of the Rubiaceae family which includes more than 500 genera and 6,000 species of tropical trees and shrubs. Other members of the family include the gardenias and plants which yield quinine and other useful substances, but Coffea is by far the most important member of the family economically.Eighteenth century Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) first described the genus but, to this day, botanists still disagree on the classification because of the wide variations that occur in coffee plants and seeds. Perhaps these travellers brought back small samples of coffee beans, but the Venetians were the first people to bring larger quantities of coffee into Europe. In 1615, Venice received Europes' first shipment of green coffee beans and the first coffee house there, Caff? Florian, opened in 1683. Coffee was known in the first half of the 17th Century in Venice and Marseille but there was no trade in beans th ere. Although famous for their tea drinking, the British were the first European nation to embrace the pleasures of coffee drinking on a commercial basis. The first coffeehouse was in Oxford in 1650 where it was opened by a Turkish Jew named Jacob. More opened soon after in London in 1652 where there were soon to be hundreds - each serving their own customers. The Ambassador of the Turkish Ottoman Empire to the court of Louis XIV in Paris brought coffee into fashion in Parisian High Society around 1669. As laid down by Turkish custom, he offered it to all who came to visit him and persuaded the Sun King to give the drink a try. The King, however, decided he prefered hot chocolate! The first cafe selling coffee was opened in Paris in 1686. Francesco Procopio de Coltelli of Sicily is credited with starting Le Procope - an establishment that's still in business today. It has been the hangout of such luminaries as Voltaire, Diderot and Robespierre. Coffee reached Vienna in 1683, just after the city had been besie ged in war with the Turks. The coffee was retained by a Polish Army Officer, Franz Georg Kolschitzky. He had previously lived in Turkey and, being the only person there who knew how to use it, claimed the stocks of coffee left by the fleeing Turkish army for himself. He later opened central Europe's first coffee house in Vienna and was reported to be quite rich as a result of this venture. He also established the habit of refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk hence inventing Viennese coffee and also the pastries served with it. The popularity spread through Europe to such an extent that, during the 17th and 18th centuries, there were more coffee shops in London than there are today. Coffee shops were nothing like the trendy shops that we have today. A true coffeehouse was crowded, smelly, noisy, feisty, smoky, celebrated and condemned. On the street in London you located the nearby coffeehouse by sniffing the air for roasting beans, or by looking for a woode n sign shaped to resemble a Turkish coffee pot. It was the coffeehouses of England that started the custom of tipping waiters and waitresses. People who wanted good service and better seating would put some money in a tin labelled "To Insure Prompt Service" - hence "TIPS". Coffee shops then were influential places, used extensively by artists, intellectuals, merchants, bankers and a forum for political activities and developments. When they became popular in England, the coffee houses were dubbed "penny universities". It was said that in a coffee house a man could "pick up more useful knowledge than by applying himself to his books for a whole month". A penny was the price of a coffee. If it were not for the cafes in Paris and the fact that they attracted revolutionaries then the French could still have a monarchy! In Paris, one cafe had a separate room reserved for fighting duels; another hosted the premiere of the world's first motion picture. It is no suprise, therefore, that such a popular institution h ad opponents everywhere.
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