So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune ~ Ruth Bader Ginsberg, United States Supreme Court Justice (1993-2020). Ginsberg was a forceful advocate for gender equality and women’s rights. She lived her belief that a person creates a meaningful life when they live not just for themselves, but for their community. She was a trailblazer as the second woman on the Court, and could easily envision a bench with nine women--only fair given the long history of nine men. A wise, wild woman indeed, RBG favored a strong brewed coffee; she drank it black.

The doors are closed on our favorite coffee shops and roasteries so when better than now to experiment with raw coffee and high heat at home? Green beans are easy to find online and developing a custom roast is a surprisingly easy enterprise. Green coffee beans are not beans at all, but rather the seeds of the coffee cherry. The red cherries are harvested, washed, de-pulped and soaked in a fermentation tank before being dried and bagged for sale. It is easy to find a reputable seller who can provide you with beans straight from the farm. Green beans will maintain their quality for a very long time when stored under dry stable conditions, but once they are roasted they get stale fast. Home roasting in small batches is an excellent way way to get the freshest cup of coffee — even when NOT in the midst of a pandemic! If you pop corn in a hot air popper then you already own the perfect coffee roaster. Pour a half cup of green beans into the popper, secure a piece of chicken wire to the top and turn on the heat. The beans will spin and turn and begin to change color. As the beans expand they will shed chaff which will look like tiny bits of thin paper floating in the air. If you like a light roast, the beans will be done soon after the chaff begins to fly. If you enjoy a dark roast, wait until the beans are crackling and smoking and starting to shine with exuded oil. Light or dark or in between, just before you think the beans are done to perfection, turn off the heat, pour the beans out into a metal pan or colander, and shake them briskly to cool them quickly. Let the beans rest for a day before you grind them – course for a press, more fine for a drip. Choose your favorite bean, your favorite roast and your favorite extractor to make the freshest cup of coffee while we wait for the world to open up again! Be sure to offer a precious cup to a front line worker!

...where coffee came from. Juan Valdez told us Colombia, and sure, most of us have had coffee from other parts of Latin America, BUT where did that first glorious berry rear its head? When the 16th century European botanist Linnaeus was categorizing the "newly discovered" flora, coffee was being grown on the terraces of the southern Arabian peninsula and the tree was seemingly appropriately designated as "Coffea arabica". However, by the mid twentieth century, historians came to agree that the botanical home of coffee is actually the high forests of central Ethiopia. Surprised? Well, stay tuned for more fascinating facts!

Sleepeducation.org (brought to us by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine—who knew?) tells us that caffeine is a “moderately effective alerting agent” and can improve reaction times, mood, and mental performance. It works best when taken intermittently. So, Drink coffee all day! (with pauses) They go on to say that coffee accounts for 54% of the caffeine consumption in the world, and Americans consume three times more caffeine than the world average at 300 mg per person. (Aside—tea has less caffeine but the English and Swedes drink so much tea that they still double the caffeine intake of Americans) A normal dose of caffeine is 50-200 mg. while a dose of 500 to 600 is like a low dose amphetamine . I always choose the middle ground so with tea at 55 mgs, coffee at 95 mg per cup, and energy drinks at 170; I suggest coffee for all! The AASM suggests use in moderation to avoid disrupting sleep. Yawn... Who has time to sleep anyway? I’m thinking this sign makes a whole lot of sense!

So everyone reads the paper with a cup of coffee; what about reading about coffee with a cup of coffee? The biggest shared database of library books is WorldCat.org. What started as an optimistic cooperative cataloging experiment among college libraries in Ohio has become the biggest non-bookstore in the world. I say non-bookstore because it is actually a gigantic library where you can borrow any book you can imagine by having what you find sent to the library that is closest to you. Create an "account" (there is no money involved) so that you can maintain lists of what you want to read and so that the system knows where you live (at least the zip code ) and can identify libraries close to you. Search for "coffee history" and get over 27,000 results. Limit by books written for children after 2000 and there are only 27 titles to examine for relevancy. So, check out worldcat.org AND your local library and read about coffee! #coffee #library #libraries #bookstore