A coffee bean (Arabic بُن bunn) is a misnomer for a seed of a coffee plant. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Even though they are seeds, they are incorrectly referred to as 'beans' because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits - coffee cherries or coffee berries - most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, instead of the usual two. This is called a peaberry. Like Brazil nuts (a seed) and white rice, coffee seeds consist mostly of endosperm.
The two most economically important varieties of coffee plant are the Arabica and the Robusta; 75-80% of the coffee produced worldwide is Arabica and 20% is Robusta. Arabica seeds consist of 0.8-1.4% caffeine and Robusta seeds consist of 1.7-4% caffeine. As coffee is one of the world's most widely consumed beverages, coffee seeds are a major cash crop, and an important export product, counting for over 50% of some developing nations' foreign exchange earnings. The United States imports more coffee than any other nation. In 2009 the average person in the United States consumed 4.09 kg (9 lbs) of coffee.
Read more about Coffee Bean: Origin, Etymology, Coffee Plant
Famous quotes containing the word coffee:
“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)