NATIONAL COFFEE DAY - SEPTEMBER 29th, 2023
The United States and Canada celebrate National Coffee Day on September 29th, while other nations mark this day throughout the calendar. International Coffee Day, observed on October 1st, pledges to help struggling coffee farmers globally make a living.
HISTORY OF NATIONAL COFFEE DAY
There’s no clear historical account of National Coffee Day, but September 29th is believed to have come up as a reminder that people should return to work after a long summer, although it is one week after the first day of fall.
On the other hand, the history of coffee itself can be traced back to the 15th century in Yemen. According to Dave Egger’s recent book, the Europeans got their first taste of coffee a century later, with Vince leading the way. According to the National Coffee Association, some people reacted to this new beverage with fear and suspicion, with some naming it the ‘bitter invention of Satan. When the coffee came to Vince in 1915, the clergy condemned it, and Pope Clement VIII was called to intervene when the controversy became so great. The Pope tasted the new beverage and found it so satisfying that he gave it papal approval. The first official coffeehouse in mainland Europe -that did not serve latte was opened in Vince around 1645.
Were it not for the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Americans would never have switched tea with coffee, especially when colonies revolted against King George III’s hefty taxes on tea that let coffee in and kicked tea out. In the 1800s, when brothers John and Charles Arbuckle started selling coffee to cowboys in the American West, things began to percolate. James Folger successfully introduced coffee to gold miners in California. Upon returning to San Francisco in 1865, he became a full partner of the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills, eventually being called J.A. Folger & Co. in 1872.
Other brands soon entered the coffee market, including Maxwell House and Hills Brothers, as a yearning for “specialty” coffee took hold in the 1960s. PEET began to offer a variety of coffee in 1966 then everything changed when a little Seattle company called Starbucks came in. The coffee market in the U.S. has grown to be an industry worth $45.4 billion, according to Allegra World Coffee Portal’s 2019 Project Café USA report. In the U.S., dry coffee sales topped $9 billion in 2017.
STATISTICS OF NATIONAL COFFEE DAY
- Americans consume coffee with a caffeine content of 75%
- Every day, 66% of women drink coffee
- Daily, 62% of men drink coffee
- The coffee plant can live up to 100 years
- Brazil exports over 5.7 billion pounds of coffee every year.
- The average American drinks 3.1 coffees each day
- Daily, 400 million coffees are consumed throughout America
- Annually, 146 billion coffees are consumed in America.
