Slide 2 History of Coffee So hopefully everyone here has woken up today!  You wake up, sit up in bed and think "I wish I could go back to sleep." However, you cannot because you have to go to work, school, or just get the kids ready for work or school.  So you stand up and shuffle your way into the kitchen and turn on the faucet to get cold water, you grab the coffee pot rinse it out and fill it up with water.  You take out the old filter and replace it with a fresh filter.  You open up your can/bag/box of coffee and get that dark roasted sent with a hint of chocolate (or whatever your flavor is smell.)  You scoop out several scoops into the filter, you add the water, close the lid, flip the switch and moments later you get a hot cup of coffee!  During all this did you ever wonder where it came from?  Who was the brilliant person who discovered this delectable drink of energy goodness?  Yeah well I have (and I am very thankful for the discovery!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee So early records indicate that coffee has been around since the middle of the 15th century in Ethiopia.  It was discovered (so legend has it) by a goat herder who noticed his goats eating a plant then becoming "spirited and not sleeping."                http://www.ncausa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=68  Where he then told the local monks whom then figured out how to brew coffee.  It later moved to the Arabic nations, then to Italy, Europe, and the Americas.  Where today coffee is grown in over 70 countries (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand, Madagascar just to name a few).  They plant the beans in several fashions: 1 they plant multiple beans in the same place where most will die out but a few take root and grow into , or 2 they plant them in a greenhouse and transplant them at 6-12 months of life.                                                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee The berries are then picked and then dried.  After drying the beans they are roasted to varying degrees and times to form different blends and strengths.  Afterwords they are ground up and brewed at home or in social center known as coffee houses.  Coffee house became a place where shippers, merchants, artisans, and people from various social standing would meet have talks and make deals for trade.  In today's time coffee house are used in much the same ways, you gather there talk with friends make deals and even go on a date (asking a member of the opposite sex out for a cup of coffee is a great icebreaker, just a helpful hint).