About Iced Coffee
Hot coffee's a favorite on cold winter mornings, but hot weather requires ice. Not surprisingly, the first drinkers of iced coffee lived in warm climates. This invigorating brew, made from the fruit of a shrub discovered on an Ethiopian hillside by a discriminating goat over 1,200 years ago, refreshes on hot summer days with more kick than tea and without the salt and carbonation of soda. Does this Spark an idea?
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History of
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Whatever the truth of a legendary Ethiopian goat, coffee came out of Africa and was a common drink in Arabia by 1000 AD. Roasting the bean was considered an art, and the brew's buzz fueled whirling dervishes and mystics alike. The Arabs took it with them in their conquests around the Mediterranean and to India. They maintained a monopoly on the bean and the shrub on which it grew by planting only sterile plants until an Indian merchant managed to smuggle out some fertilized beans in the 17th century. An Italian merchant introduced the bean to Europe, and the Dutch carried it to Java. A young naval officer snatched a shoot from a plant in Louis XIV's gardens and took it with him to Martinique in the New World. Another smuggler brought the plants to Brazil. Today coffee grows all over the world in semi-tropical areas and on tropical mountainsides from the spines of the Andes in South America to the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in East Africa.
Evolution
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Iced coffee wasn't invented until ice could be produced and stored in the beginning of the 20th century. The Japanese started drinking iced coffee in the 1920s, and the Greeks developed the idea of the coffee frappe in the 1950s. Today there are seemingly as many variations as makers, from the humble cold-brewed coffee with cream and simple syrup to commercial "frappaccinos" and white chocolate slushies.
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Benefits
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Coffee has a bad reputation, beginning with the mullahs who controlled its use in the 11th century. Recently, the brew---even in its caffeinated form---has been rehabilitated and coffee is being investigated for its health benefits for everything from cancer to Parkinson's disease.
The Facts
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As with everything else, iced coffee enjoys fads. Iced coffee is sold in Japan, Australia and Greece in cans that can be cooled, but the Australian blend is more a coffee-flavored milk, the Japanese use gum syrup instead of simple syrup, and the Greeks shake instant coffee with water until a thick froth forms. Espresso is used for latte and cappuccino "freddos." The Israelis make slushies. Americans do it all---baristas dump fruit, chocolate and caramel flavorings into iced coffees and freddos. The Vietnamese, who are, with the Chinese, an emerging power in the coffee-growing business, take their iced coffee with condensed milk, and the Thais sprinkle it with cardamom. Frappes (iced coffee shaken, not stirred) can be made with milk, ice cream, evaporated milk, cream or water. Although cold-brewed coffee is in fashion, instant coffee or drip brewed coffee can be used. Since heat makes any coffee bitter, it should never sit on a heat pad before icing.
Risk Factors
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The only problem with a good iced coffee is that, like its hot form, you just can't stop. When it's full of sweet cream, sugar or ice cream, it can be as fattening as any sweet.
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