Today is National Coffee Day. For coffee lovers in the States this is the next best holiday to Christmas. Many businesses are giving away free coffee and lines are now forming at your friendly neighborhood 7-Eleven. One day dedicated to the pleasures and perils of drinking coffee doesn’t seem like quite enough. Frank Sinatra may have said it best in 1946 when he recorded this chart stopping homage to coffee as a national beverage with lyrics that sang
Way down among Brazilians
Coffee beans grow by the billions
So they’ve got to find those extra cups to fill
They’ve got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil
Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer and although espresso may be considered to be Italy’s national drink (with 14 billion espresso coffees consumed each year), according to Bloomberg.com Europeans with the highest coffee consumption per capita are the Scandinavians (Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark) with France, Italy and the US almost neck to neck or should I say cup to cup.