15 Things You Never Knew About Your Favorite Drink - COFFEE!

#1 Coffee contains important nutrients you need to survive.

A single cup of coffee contains 11% of the daily recommended amount of Riboflavin (vitamin B2), 6% of Pantothenic Acid (vitamin B5), 3% of Manganese and Potassium, and 2% of Niacin and Magnesium. It only takes ten minutes to start feeling the effects of caffeine and the nutrients to do their job after you take a sip of coffee, so drink up!

#2 That wonderful scent in your corner coffee store may actually be fake.

Coffee companies such as Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts sometimes use "fake coffee smell" to entice shoppers. ScentAir, a so-called "scent provider," is a popular choice in the coffee industry as well as retail stores, restaurants and hotels, where methods of "aromachology" are used along with the "latest in fragrance technology."

#3 Europeans originally called coffee "Arabian wine."

Due to the linguistic history of what eventually became "coffee," Europeans first referred to the drink as, "Arabian wine". The word "coffee" originally came from the Arabic "qahhwat al-bun" or "wine of the bean." That phrase turned into "qahwah," which became "kahveh" in Turkey and eventually became "koffie" in Dutch and "caffe" in Italy.

Coffee was also so influential in Turkey that their word for breakfast, "kahvalti", translates to "before coffee" and their word for brown, "kahverengi," is also derived from "kahveh," for coffee.

#4 The two oldest recorded cats drank coffee every day.

The Guinness-recognized "oldest cat ever" was Creme Puff, who lived to be 38 years old and died in 2005. The owner, Jake Perry, fed her coffee every morning along with bacon, eggs and broccoli. This is especially significant because Perry was also the owner of the previous record holder, Grandpa Rex Allen, who was fed the same diet and died at 34.

#5 It's not actually the caffeine you crave. It's the caffeine's effect on adenosine.

Ever thought about why coffee makes you feel the way it does? It all has to do with what's happening in your brain. As your brain is active, and the neurons are firing, these neurons produce the by-product adenosine. Your nervous system monitors the levels of adenosine, and when you start getting to high levels of it, the brain slows down, which makes you sleepy or at least slow down on what you're doing. But caffeine attaches to your adenosine receptors, and when it does, your brain can't detect the adenosine levels, so it keeps going at top speed.

Which means that caffeine isn't getting you jacked up; it's actually putting the brakes on the thing that naturally slows you down.

#6 Honeybees are really into coffee, too.

There's the buzz of a bee and the buzz of caffeine, but as it turns out, the two have a link. It has been shown that caffeine both attracts honeybees kind of like a drug and that it has a positive impact on their longterm memory.

#7 Coffee is the most drank beverage in the world.

Americans sing coffee's praise as much as those in the middle East. According to Harvard research, Americans spend $40 billion on coffee each year. The world consumes close to 1.6 billion cups of coffee every day.

#8 Coffee Breaks really do help you get energized.

Want to get the most out of your afternoon nap? Then drink some coffee before you go to sleep. Researchers have found that a cup of coffee followed by a 15-minute nap leads to people feeling extra alert. This is how the term "coffee Break' came to be.. so workers would not fall asleep while at the desk, and feel refreshed and energized by the caffeine.

#9 Your brain loves it when you drink coffee!

Coffee drinkers have been found significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. 65% less likely, actually! Study has shown that patients who drank one cup each day were less likely to get dementia as well. Keeping your mind active while drinking coffee is said to be the reason.

#10 Coffee spills more easily than other beverages.

Ever tried to serve a cup very full of black coffee? It's hard to keep it from spilling over the edges. But what about a full pint? As it turns out, scientists have shown that beer doesn't spill as easily as coffee because of the foam content. Which means that your cappuccino is going to slosh less than a cup of black filter. It even spills faster than a bottle of water does.

#11 Elephants love to eat coffee cherries, and the dung from one can be harvested for the beans.

Coffee cherriesthe fruit that bears our beloved beansare a favorite snack of elephants, and the beans, or seeds, can be harvested, already hulled, from their dung. Smooth and caramel-tasting, elephant-dung coffee has been known to sell for $500 a pound. YUM!

#12 Death by coffee...It's really possible.

Sadly, you actually CAN overdose on coffee and it can be your enemy instead of that trusted good friend. Too much drinking coffee and you could die. REALLY. You would have to drink a lot of coffee though: 52 cups ingested by a 125 pound person would equal a lethal dose.

#13 Think coffee makes your breath smell bad?

In 2009 researchers at Tel Aviv University found that adding coffee to a dish of saliva inhibited the growth of a bacterium that causes halitosis. So go ahead, take a coffee break.

#14 Starbucks new HUGE sized Trenta Cup holds more liquid than the body can hold at one time.

Starbucks' new "Trenta" size is so big that all that liquid in that giant-sized drink cannot even physically be held within the average sized stomach. The amount of liquid in the mondo Trenta size is about 15 milliliters more liquid than the average stomach can carry.

#15 Your body doesn't need coffee first thing in the morning.

Because of your body's natural clock (aka the circadian clock), you naturally produce cortisol a hormone linked to alertness when you wake up. That means that if you add coffee to the mix, the caffeine actually isn't doing anything for you. Want the best effects of the caffeine? Wait until late morning, when the cortisol levels have dropped.