International Coffee day - October 1

 

International Coffee Day falls on October 1 every year. This is a holiday for all coffee lovers who are basically just about everyone. 

To read more about Coffee Day, click on the link.

Everyone talks about the coffee they prefer, when and in what position. One prefers latte coffee before bed and the other granita on a successful date. She prefers chocolate in the winter under the warm blanket (how can it not be spilled on her?), And you? You just love an old-fashioned instant coffee.

Especially for you we have prepared the following short dictionary, of types of coffee, so that you can re-examine your preferences or at least understand what everyone is talking about.

Espresso - a strong black coffee that is prepared by pouring hot water under steam pressure through finely ground beans. Thick and bitter coffee with a reddish-brown foam on the upper edges, which indicates the quality of the pouring.

Latte - a drink consisting of half an espresso with whipped milk. Latte has an amount of about an inch of frothed milk.

Cappuccino - a drink consisting of an espresso, a third cup of hot milk and a third cup of frothed milk. Not recommended for those on a diet.

Iced coffee - coffee of any kind with the addition of ice. When making iced coffee it should be made more concentrated as the ice cubes that are added to it dilute its flavor. You can sweeten the cold coffee with sugar water (hot water containing dissolved sugar). Vanilla, mocha or walnut extracts can be added to iced coffee.

French vanilla - a drink made from an espresso dish with cold milk, with the addition of vanilla flavors.

Filter - coffee that is prepared by pouring hot water through a container with a filter containing coffee beans. The water absorbs the taste and aroma through the coffee beans and arrives in the glass as a fine coffee drink.

Parfait - a cold drink consisting of instant coffee powder dissolved in water and whipped with the addition of milk. The parfait can be upgraded using various flavor additions or using Irish coffee or Bayliss.

Irish Coffee - Coffee with Irish whiskey. Irish coffee is prepared by pouring a long espresso or filter coffee with sugar into a glass of whiskey. Then pour sweet cream so that two layers are formed in the glass: one dark layer of whiskey coffee and a white layer of cream on top, through which the bitter coffee is drunk.

Granita - a drink made of ice in various flavors such as oranges, lemon, mint, strawberry or almond. This is basically iced coffee.

Macchiato - espresso stained with frothed milk. Add a teaspoon of frothed milk to the espresso and you have a macchiato. The opposite drink is latte macchiato: hot frothed milk with a touch of a teaspoon of espresso.

Instant coffee - coffee powder that is prepared by grinding roasted coffee beans to a fine, cooking them at a high temperature and low pressure when as a result of this process the water evaporates and a concentrated coffee residue remains, which is dried into a powder. Mix a teaspoon of this powder with boiling water, milk, sugar or sucrose Instant coffee drink.

Americano - espresso with added water. The hot water that is added to Americano does not pass through the coffee beans and therefore does not strengthen the espresso flavor. The amount of water added to Americano determines the strength of the drink.

Decaffeinated - For those who do want to sleep well at night or for those whose doctor advised them to avoid caffeine, coffee that contains a small percentage of caffeine. According to the international standard it must contain less 97% caffeine and according to the European standard 99.9% caffeine.

It does not matter what coffee you like to drink, how, when and with whom - we wish you a happy International Coffee Day!

October 1 is also Raccoon Appreciation Day

Coca Cola inventor John Pemberton's birthday- July 8th

Did you know that Coca-Cola was originally created as a medicine and that it is named after the two main ingredients in it: Coca-Cola?

Coca is a shrub from which cocaine is produced and cola is a nut that grows in the rainforests of Africa. But do not worry, Coca-Cola no longer has cocaine.

When American pharmacist John Pemberton first invented Coca-Cola, in 1886, it was as a result of a search for a non-alcoholic version of his Coca-Cola wine.

John Pemberton was born on July 8, 1831 in the US state of Georgia. As a soldier he fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army (South) and was wounded in the Battle of Columbus.

He received morphine from the military doctors and became addicted to it.

After completing his military service he worked as a pharmacist and began looking for a cure for addiction. He brewed himself a wine from cola nuts and added the coca plant to it, until he finally managed to invent the "Pemberton's French Wine Coca". When he saw that his wine was helping him cope with the pain, he began selling it to other military veterans suffering from morphine addiction, depression and alcoholism, as well as to women suffering from nervous weakness (neurasthenia).

In 1885, drought laws were enacted in Georgia, prohibiting the production, sale and drinking of alcohol. Pemberton was forced to create a non-alcoholic version of his wine drink. He worked hard to create a recipe for a non-alcoholic version, until in 1886 he invented a secret recipe according to which he decided to mix his Coca-Cola syrup with soda water. He sold it for five cents a glass as a patent. People at the time believed that carbonated water was good for their health, and Pemberton claimed that its special soda was a drug for morphine addiction, indigestion, neurasthenia, headaches and other health problems. In May of that year, Pemberton founded the Coca-Cola Company and marketed the drink as having medicinal properties and as a drug for morphine or opium addiction.

It is estimated that the original Coca-Cola recipe contained about nine milligrams of cocaine in a glass. The average dose of cocaine is between 15 and 35 milligrams. However, the effect of coca leaves was balanced in the presence of the caffeine in the cola nut. In 1903 cocaine was removed from the secret recipe but Coca-Cola still has the flavor of the coca plant.

The first Coca-Cola model, Hilda Clark, in an advertisement from 1890 in which she offers a glass of Coca-Cola for the price of 5 cents.

Hilda Clark in a Coca-Cola commercial, The Ideal Brain Tonic, A drink for summer and winter, especially for headaches, relieves mental and physical exhaustion

Coca Cola vintage radio

Anisette Day - July 2nd

July 2 is the day of anise drinks, alcoholic beverages made from the fermentation and refining of alcohol and the soaking of the fruits of the anise plant in the liquid.

Anise stars 

Anise drinks are consumed in most Mediterranean countries, mainly in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel and France. The anise drink is colorless, and when mixed with water or other liquids a cloudy white color is obtained. This is because the drinks are made up of alcohol and oil distilled from the anise seeds. Anise seed oil does not dissolve in water (a feature called hydrophobicity) but dissolves in the alcohol. When water is added to the anise and alcohol mixture, the alcohol concentration decreases and the average polarity increases to such an extent that the anise oil no longer melts in it and it separates out of the mixture while creating very tiny drops. The round oil droplets refract the light rays that hit them in all directions and the result is that the resulting drink looks white, the condition that occurs is called an emulsion.

The anise drinks are made from several plants: anise, simple fennel, wormwood, shrub wormwood and ice licorice.

Aniseed drinks are very popular and are drunk in different places in different forms.

The different types of aniseed drinks and the countries in which they are drunk:

In the Middle East, arak (Arabic: عَرَق) is an alcoholic beverage produced mainly in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel. The name originated in Arabic, and means "sweat" (due to the refining process by evaporation and dripping).

In Greece they drink Ouzo (Greek: Ούζο), a drink made from grapes or crushed raisins, sometimes with the addition of spices and other fruits during the fermentation stage. The mixture can be added, according to the manufacturer's choice, to additional ingredients such as coriander, cloves, angel root, licorice, mint, fennel, almonds, cinnamon and horseradish.

In Turkey they drink Raki and in Tunisia they drink Boukha. 

In Europe, absinthe is drunk, which contains a high percentage of ethanol and is seasoned with plant extracts, including the wormwood plant from the absinthe wormwood species. The color of the drink is green, and its taste is reminiscent of the taste of anise. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "liqueur", but absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a distilled liquor or spirit.

In France they drink pastis. (French: Pastis), a French liqueur and aperitif which usually contains 40-45% alcohol by volume (there are also non-alcoholic types). The name originates from an Occitan language, a southern French dialect, meaning "cake" or "mixture", or "narrow", "unpleasantness" or "confusing situation".

In Italy Sambuca is drunk and legend has it that when a girl would bring her heart choice to her parents, they would dine together. At the end of the meal the mother of the family would serve a sambuca. If the father received the drink with three coffee beans (a sign of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) a sign that the mother had given her approval.

In Central Asia they drink Kumis which is made from mare's milk or donkey milk in a horse-skin container called "Saba". The drink contains small amounts of alcohol so drink large amounts to feel drunk. 

 July 2 is also UFO Day