The Wonderful, Wacky World of Coffee Quiz

Answer: seeds

"Coffee beans" are the seeds of the berries of the Coffea plant. They are harvested from the stems of the small Coffea bushes or trees, stripped of their flesh, and the seeds (beans) dried. Then the beans are roasted to various shades of darkness depending on the desired flavor.

The roasted beans are then ground to varying levels of coarseness, depending on the brewing method to be employed. This method also allows for the extraction of coffee flavoring that is used in many different food items.

Answer: Rhode Island

You can make coffee syrup by using water and sugar and then running those ingredients through coffee grounds by use of a strainer. Adding it to milk gets you coffee milk. It was announced as the official state beverage in Rhode Island in 1993. Coffee milk is usually attributed to Italian immigrants in the state, but it is not certain how the recipe was originally created.

The popularity of coffee milk is largely centered in Rhode Island. It can be used as a basis for other recipes like a "coffee cabinet," adding ice cream to the coffee milk.

Answer: chocolate

The famous lifestyle mavens/caterers/chefs Martha Stewart and Ina Garten have both extolled the virtue of adding a small amount of coffee to enhance the flavors of chocolate dishes from cakes to cookies to candies to sauces to ice cream. The coffee does not make the resulting dishes taste at all like coffee, but enhances their chocolate flavor. Something to do with complementary chemicals in the two ingredients.

Answer: 80 - 175 mg

Caffeine is a mildly addictive, stimulant chemical that occurs naturally in coffee. The amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee varies with the type of bean and the roasting and brewing method. As with most food, moderate consumption of caffeine carries virtually no health risk, although certain people, such as pregnant women, are cautioned to limit their consumption.

As every student who has pulled an all-night study session knows, caffeine can temporarily prevent sleep and enhance performance. It has been used for these purposes by shift workers and athletes, as well as by students over the years.

Answer: chantilly cream

Café liégois is tres French, although its name suggests it comes from the Belgian city of Liège (also called Luik). It was originally called café viennois, but was changed after the first World War because it reminded the French too much of the Austrian enemy.

It was now renamed after the brave soldiers in the battle of Liège, who had helped the French considerably. There are many variants of the recipe, but mainly the basis is ice cream, coffee and syrup with some whipping cream. More commonly it is referred to as chantilly cream, although they are often seen as the same thing.

Answer: tiramisu

"Tiramisu" means "pick me up" in Italian. It appears to have been invented in the 1960s as a variant of another popular Italian dessert, zuppa Inglese. It is a layered dessert, and can be made in a trifle bowl, a cake pan, or even a casserole dish. Many variants have evolved over the years, but the coffee flavoring of the cake layer and the chocolate flavoring of the cream remain constant. Yet another example of the epic culinary combination of coffee and chocolate.

Answer: egg yolks

Apparently the Egg Coffee recipe originated at a time when milk was scarce; so a cafe owner from Hanoi used egg yolks instead. This created egg coffee. It is commonly found in the city of Hanoi, where it is quite trendy these days. There are many variations of the drink. It is often served in a hot bowl of water, to make sure that the hot drink does not drop in temperature. The drink can also be served iced.

Answer: the coffee berries are first eaten and excreted by a civet cat

The Asian palm civet, a small tropical animal that resembles a cross between a lemur and a cat, ingests the coffee berries in the wild and then excretes them on the jungle floor. From there they are harvested by hand and processed in the more typical way of coffee production.

It is said that the digestive chemicals in the civet react with the coffee berries to create a distinctive flavor for the resulting coffee drink. The production process through the selection of the coffee beans for ingestion by the wild civets and hand harvesting is very labor-intensive, resulting in coffee which can cost upwards of $75 a cup in a restaurant or from $100 to $600 a pound. Producers have taken to producing the coffee through the use of civets which are fed the coffee in captivity, but this practice has led to much criticism by animal rights activists.

Answer: Brazil

Brazil produces almost twice as much coffee (2.7 million metric tons) as the next largest producer, which is, surprisingly, Vietnam (1.65 million tons). The top five producers are rounded out by Colombia (800,000 tons), Indonesia (700,000 tons), and Ethiopia (400,000 tons).

Answer: frappe

Frappé is said to have originated in Greece. It is made by mixing sugar, coffee and water with ice cubes and sometimes milk. The drink exists in many variations. The amount of sugar can be altered; other variations feature ingredients such as liqueurs. Many coffee chains have popularized the name of the drink, making the frappe (often without the accent) a more generic term for a cold coffee drink.