HotAIR - Coffee

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CLASSICAL GAS --
THE DARK SIDE OF COFFEE

by Pilk John Hannay, National Agronomic Laboratory, Bethesda, Maryland

Our analysis of the 2000 world coffee crops yielded results consistent with those of previous years' surveys ,[1] confirming that, statistically, coffee has a dark side.

The 1989 survey yielded the finding that a statistically significant number (in the aggregate, between 52% and 55%) of coffee beans exhibit a distinct asymmetry in the surface distribution of coloring. This asymmetry is mirrored, so to speak, in the surface distribution of most of the chemical components known to contribute significantly to taste.

The finding that coffee has a dark side is true only of coffee of "good quality," and does not apply to coffee grown in climatically inappropriate regions. In those regions (such as Sweden), a distinctly different asymmetry holds: a slight (between 51% and 54%) statistical preponderance of coffee beans has a light side.


[1] Excepting the survey for the year 1979 in which anomalous weather conditions combined with petroleum price-related disruptions in many coffee producing nations' transport systems to alter the coffee crop compositions available in the United States.

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