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Coffee, Tea & Drinks: fun facts and quiz
The essentials in 7 ideas, with fun facts, an illustrated story and a quiz to see how much you know.
The essentials
Coffee Origins
Legend says an Ethiopian goat herder, Kaldi, noticed his goats dancing after eating coffee berries. By the 1400s, coffee was being brewed in Yemen.
Key fact
Coffee “beans” are really the seeds of a red fruit.
One Plant, Many Teas
Green, black, white and oolong tea all come from one plant, Camellia sinensis. The difference is processing: black tea is oxidised the longest.
Key fact
Tea is the world’s most drunk drink after water.
Coffee Around the World
Brazil grows about a third of the world’s coffee. Espresso is made by forcing hot water through finely ground coffee at high pressure.
Key fact
An espresso shot takes only about 25 to 30 seconds to make.
Caffeine
Caffeine, found in coffee, tea, cacao and more, keeps you alert by blocking a chemical that makes you feel sleepy. A cup of coffee has about 95 mg.
Key fact
Caffeine can stay in your body for hours.
Tea Traditions
Britain has afternoon tea, India spiced chai, Morocco sweet mint tea, and Japan the tea ceremony with matcha. In 1773, colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor in protest.
Key fact
Matcha is green tea leaves ground into a fine powder.
Fizzy Drinks
In 1767, scientist Joseph Priestley found how to put fizz into water. Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by an Atlanta pharmacist and first sold as a tonic.
Key fact
Coca-Cola was first sold at a pharmacy soda fountain.
Drinking Chocolate
For thousands of years, chocolate was a drink. The Maya and Aztecs drank it bitter and frothy, often spiced with chilli. The first chocolate bar came in 1847.
Key fact
The Aztecs used cacao beans as money.
Fun facts
The word “coffee” reached English through Dutch and Turkish, from the Arabic “qahwa”.
Tea bags are said to have caught on by accident, after customers brewed a merchant’s silk sample bags whole.
Finland drinks more coffee per person than any other country.
Caffeine is a natural pesticide: plants make it to put off insects that chew their leaves.
Tea was made fashionable in Britain by Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess who married Charles II in 1662.
Early Coca-Cola contained traces of cocaine from coca leaves. It was taken out in the early 1900s.
The word “chocolate” probably comes from the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs.
Story: The Poet’s Coffee Beans
The Poet’s Coffee Beans
1819, Jena. Young chemist Friedlieb Runge shows the poet Goethe a trick: a drop of deadly nightshade juice that makes a cat’s pupils grow huge.
Goethe, a keen coffee drinker, is impressed. He hands Runge a box of rare coffee beans and asks him to find out what’s in them.
Within months, Runge had pulled out the substance that keeps coffee drinkers awake: caffeine.
True or false?
Tap your answer to see if you got it, and why.
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Question 1 of 10
Coffee beans are the seeds of a fruit.
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True. The fruit is called a coffee cherry.
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Question 2 of 10
Green and black tea come from the same plant.
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True. They’re processed differently.
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Question 3 of 10
An espresso shot takes about 25 to 30 seconds.
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True. Hot water forced through at pressure.
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Question 4 of 10
Tea contains caffeine.
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True. Usually less than coffee.
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Question 5 of 10
The Boston Tea Party was a protest.
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True. Against British taxes, in 1773.
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Question 6 of 10
Coca-Cola was first sold as a tonic.
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True. In Atlanta, in 1886.
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Question 7 of 10
The Aztecs used cacao beans as money.
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True. Beans could buy food and goods.
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Question 8 of 10
Coffee was first grown in Brazil.
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False. It comes from Ethiopia.
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Question 9 of 10
Black tea comes from a black-leaved plant.
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False. It darkens by oxidising.
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Question 10 of 10
Espresso is made by leaving coffee to soak overnight.
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False. That’s cold brew; espresso is fast.
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KnowSoda learns what you know and brings back what you’re about to forget. Coffee, Tea & Drinks has 6 more ideas at the Advanced and Expert levels.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — coffee, tea, Coca-Cola, Joseph Priestley, chocolate
- International Coffee Organization — Production data
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Spilling the beans: how much caffeine is too much?
- Smithsonian Magazine — A brief history of chocolate
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — coffeehouse, decaffeination, bubble tea, kombucha
- UN Environment Programme — Plastic pollution facts
