IN IRELAND, WE drink a lot of coffee. In an Amárach survey of 1,000 Irish adults, commissioned by Java Republic, 76% identified as coffee drinkers (79% of men and 73% of women).

Almost half (47%) reported drinking more coffee now than they did 10 years ago, with 68% drinking 1–2 cups per day and a further 25% drinking 3–4 cups per day. Before the Celtic Tiger era, many of us might have been happy with instant coffee, but the sheer explosion of high-street coffee shops serving espressos, americanos, flat whites, lattes and cappuccinos has turned us into a nation of connoisseurs.

We even have a National Coffee Day (29 September), in case you were wondering, International Coffee Day (1 October), first launched in Milan in 2015 to celebrate the world’s third favourite drink (after water and tea), while also promoting fair trade coffee and raising awareness of the challenges faced by coffee growers. These include climate change, pests and diseases, unpredictable coffee prices, labour shortages and wage issues, supply-chain problems and limited access to money and resources. It’s a tough old grind out on the plantations.

Coffee has been big business for a long time. Wild coffee plants were native to the Ethiopian plateau region of Kaffa, however it is unclear how or when exactly they became domesticated. One story goes that Kaldi, a goatherd who lived around the year 850AD, sampled some berries on which his goats had been feeding, and consequently felt a sense of exhilaration.

Around the 15th century, coffee plants were imported to Arabia (now Yemen) and farmed, with Sufi monks among the first to brew coffee as a stimulating beverage.

Coffeehouses began springing up in Mecca in the 15th century and Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the 16th. With the growth of the Ottoman Empire and the entrepreneurship of Venetian merchants, coffee then spread through Europe and Asia. Coffee farming reached Java and Hawaii in the 17th century and the Americas in the 18th.

Scene in a London coffee house, where the main requirements are a clean pipe, a dish of coffee, and the Supplement. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The “americano” got........

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