The more you know about coffee and the coffee process, the more you’ll truly appreciate the extraordinary Bauhaus Kaffee quality and flavor! Here are some interesting coffee facts:

• A coffee bean is the seed of the coffee plant (the pit inside the red or purple fruit).

• The seeds of different species produce coffee with slightly different characteristics.

• With over 500 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is one of the world’s most popular beverages.

• Twelve billion pounds of coffee is consumed around the globe annually, and subject to automation and requires constant attentionthe United States alone has over 130 million coffee drinkers.

• Brazil produces almost a third of all the world’s coffee.

• Coffee is a labor-intensive culture because it is not mechanized.

• The green coffee beans are transported to world-wide locations where they are roasted.

• Time spent in the roaster determines flavor and intensity.

• After roasting, the coffee beans are either packaged whole or ground and then packaged.

• The packaging itself is important. The preferred packaging has a one-way valve that allows gases to escape without allowing oxygen to get in. Cans and sealed plastic containers don’t have that ability.

• The best flavor comes from freshly roasted and freshly ground coffee beans. Buy coffee beans instead of ground coffee.

• At home, keep the beans in a tightly sealed container and grind just enough beans for each use.

• Never keep coffee beans or ground coffee in the refrigerator or freezer, and buy no more than you can use in one month.

• Bird-friendly or shade-tree coffee is produced in regions where natural shade (canopy trees) is used to shelter coffee plants during parts of the growing season.

• Organic coffee is produced under strict certification guidelines, and is grown without the use of potentially harmful artificial pesticides or fertilizers; conventional coffee is grown with more pesticides than any other agricultural crop—cotton comes second.

• Fair Trade coffee is produced by small coffee producers who belong to cooperatives; guaranteeing for these cooperatives a minimum price.