Either Coffee or Tea is mostly consumed beverages across the world. Many people before getting up off the bed in the morning take a cup of coffee or tea with sugar or without sugar or with milk or without milk or different permutations and combinations. My favourite beverage is tea with little sugar and milk which I prepare, but whenever I am out of home on tour or abroad I prefer coffee. To promote and popularise coffee, the International Coffee Organization (ICO), was established in London in 1963 under the auspices of the United Nations consisting of 43 exporting members and 6 importing members (as of November 2019). In March 2014, the member countries of the ICO agreed to organise International Coffee Day on 1 October to create a single day of celebration for coffee lovers of the world. It is pertinent to mention that the International Coffee Organization (ICO) is the main intergovernmental organization for coffee, bringing together exporting and importing governments to tackle the challenges facing the world coffee sector through international cooperation. Its members represent 98 percent of world coffee production and 67 percent of world consumption. Based on the secondary sources few important facts about the coffee are presented here.
a) A number of studies carried out in 2014, 2015 and 2016 found coffee is good for liver, may lower risk of heart attacks and may cut the risk of colon cancer.
b) The finding of a study released in March, 2016 established the fact that coffee helps to reduce risk of multiple sclerosis (MS).
c) A study in 2012 revealed the fact that those who drink coffee before sitting down to work at a computer had less neck and shoulder pain.
d) Numerous studies have mentioned coffee as a major — and in some cases, the primary — dietary source of antioxidants.
e) Caffeine provides a short-term memory boost: A group of volunteers were given 100 milligrams (mg) of caffeine,( about a cup of coffee), Austrian researchers found a surge in the volunteers’ brain activity, measured by functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI), as they performed a memory task. The researchers noted that the memory skills and reaction times of the caffeinated volunteers were also improved when compared to the control group. According to the researchers, caffeine appears to affect the particular areas of the brain responsible for memory and concentration, providing a boost to short-term memory, although it’s not clear how long the effect lasts or how it may vary from person to person.
f) Coffee curbs depression: Multiple studies have proved that coffee lower rates of depression in both men and women. In several studies, the data suggested an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and depression: in other words, heavy coffee drinkers seemed to have the lowest risk (up to 20 percent) of depression.
g) According to the Nurses’ Health Study, coffee’s antioxidant properties may reduce the risk of gout by diminishing insulin, which in turn lowers uric acid (high concentrations of uric acid can cause gout).
One interesting fact about coffee is that in the 1932 Olympics, Brazil couldn’t afford to send its athletes to Los Angeles, so the Government sent them in a ship full of coffee which was sold on the way to finance their trip. It may be mentioned here that Brazil, the top coffee producing country, accounted for 40 percent of the global coffee supply. Vietnam, is the second-largest coffee producer, accounting for around 20 percent of the world coffee production.
The following websites have been consulted while writing the article:
1) www.internationalcoffeeday.org
Dr. Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad, 1st October 2020
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