Cnapter 14 



BEVERAGE PLANTS 



The desire to extract substances from plants which in solu- 

 tion result in stimulating beverages, has led man to capitalize 

 upon two which have a rather wide distribution in nature. One is 

 the drug caffeine, present in the leaves and fruits of a number of 

 tropical plants, but best known in coffee, tea and chocolate. 

 These plants have long been used as the source of the major 

 non-alcoholic beverages. The other is alcohol, produced by the 

 action of yeast plants upon the fruit sugars found in various 

 organs of the plant body. Alcoholic beverages include the wide 

 variety of wines, beer, whiskies, brandies and other fermented or 

 distilled beverages. 



Non-alcoholic Beverages 



Coffee is the world's most important single beverage, from a 

 commercial standpoint. The coffee plant is a native of northern 

 Africa, whence it was transplanted to Arabia some five hundred 

 years ago. For two hundred years the world's coffee supply came 

 from this country; meanwhile the plant was being introduced 

 elsewhere in the tropics, finally reaching Brazil about 1770. The 

 beverage was slow in becoming established in the New World, al- 

 though it was in general use in Europe two hundred and fifty 

 years ago. The use of cofTee has increased in the United States to 

 such a point that today we import over one-half of the world's 

 entire output. It is truly a beverage of the New World, since 

 Brazil, in an area not much larger than our state of Ohio, 

 produces almost three-fourths of the entire world crop. The 

 inhabitants of Sweden are the only people on earth who report- 

 edly are greater coffee consumers than Americans. 



Ninety per cent of the world's coffee comes from the seeds of 

 an evergreen tree or tall shrub belonging to the genus Cofea of the 



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