What's the deal with the goat? (cont.) In 1714 the French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu succeeded in bringing a live cutting of a coffee tree to the island of Martinique in the West Indies. This single plant was the beginning of the great coffee plantations of Latin America. It wasn’t until after the Boston Tea Party in America when coffee was used as the replacement for tea. This political action firmly entrenched coffee into the American culture. Gourmet coffee first became popularized in the 20th century when a hotel in Memphis began roasting and serving its own coffee. The popularity grew quickly for the Maxwell House hotel and they soon began to sell the beans to local stores. Today, coffee is a giant global industry employing more than 20 million people. This commodity ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars traded worldwide. With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world's most popular beverage. If you can imagine, in Brazil alone, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants. << Back to the Beginning

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