Talk:Coffee

Phrasing improvement needed ...

Re: "Coffee is often enjoyed in different flavors, such as hazelnut, french vanilla, and Columbian, just to name a few."

I think that sentence should be recast for a couple of reasons, but am not coming up with the perfect phrasing myself yet, so perhaps someone else will.

1) Flavors may be added, but I don't think it quite scans to say that it's "enjoyed in different flavors." Unlike a popsicle or ice cream, coffee has a strong, dominating flavor all by itself; you might spice or otherwise add flavoring to steak, but you wouldn't say that "people enjoy steak in different flavors, such as peppercorn and A1 sauce." That sounds sarcastic, but I don't mean it to! Coffee can be flavored, but I'd be a bit offput if a waitress asked "What flavor coffee would you like?" Is it just me?

2) "Columbian" isn't a "flavor" anyhow, is it? I'm not sure what was meant there.

timbo 04:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, Colombian isn't a "flavour" (not to mention it was misspelled). It's a brand promoted--very successfully--by the government of Colombia. The name "Colombian milds" also refers to the highest-quality of the four varieties of coffee, but this type of coffee is (somewhat ironically) also grown in other countries, for example Kenya. However, Colombian milds can be given any of the "flavours" that other types of coffee can.

In any case, I don't really think the sentence on flavours is appropriate for a lead, and I've deleted it. Perhaps it could be placed in The Drink if people feel it's important enough to keep in the article somewhere.--Margareta 17:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Citation Improvement

For some time this article has relied heavily on inappropriate sources such as Glamour magazine and coffee roasters' own web sites. The recent addition of the "prehistoric uses" paragraph has finally spurred me to action. I've added a "Citecheck" tag to the article and I hope some folks will get involved in cleaning up the references and deleting poorly sourced or unverifiable statements. If you're not sure if a source meets Wikipedia standards, see WP:V for more info.--Margareta 22:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems Biased

"The implication for coffee drinkers seems quite clear: the caffeine argument is, at best, a half-issue. Coffee drinkers who value a healthy mind and body will quit drinking coffee entirely." Is it just me or does the health and pharmacology section seem extremely biased? There are facts supporting both sides of the issue, I'd like to see a more neutral version of this section created.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.33.239.198 (talk • contribs)

I revered that addition. I think there may be some useful stuff in there, but large amounts of it are unreferenced POV, and in some cases at odds with Coffee and health, which is heavily referenced.--Curtis Clark 17:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole article has various biases throughout. It is an "owned" article, and, as such, could be rather difficult to improve. KP Botany 23:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Health and Pharmacology

Speaking of the health and pharmacology section, does everyone think it really belongs under "Coffee and Society?" Also there are two sections on caffeine, one under "Society" and one under "The Drink." What do people think about merging the different sections on health and caffeine into a new category of its own, as it's realy separate from "The Drink" and "Society"?--Margareta 19:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Coffee has much more than caffiene that can impact people who drink it, including a good section on this information, in its own section could be useful and clean things up a bit. It really is its own section, after all. KP Botany 19:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this something you have an interest in? Would you feel up to doing it?--Margareta 19:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

History of coffee

Just wanted to let interested editors know, I moved some material from the "History of coffee" section to the main article History of coffee. I didn't delete anything, just moved it around. The section was becoming pretty detailed for a general overview--and the History of coffee article also seemed like it could benefit from more content.--Margareta 23:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Coffee's impacts

Most of this material is good, but to some extent I think that the sum total needs clarification. For example, aspects of The History of Coffee can be combined with the main Coffee page and the Social Impacts to create something new. Im proposing a page that talks about how coffee drove so many aspects of society: science, invention, literature, politics, political theory, etc. And this argument does not root itself in anything silly like "caffeine makes you think" (though Voltaire consumed mythic amounts, 50 cups a day). At any rate, if you want me to do an artile on this post a heading and a go ahead. I wont bother with all the work unless there some degree of certainty that it will not all be deleted.

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Tags

Those tags are horrid. Please, someone, address the issues and remove them. It is also time to bring this article up to Good-Article status. Don't make me do this myself. RedRabbit1983 04:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the "<!--inadequate reference-->" note for Léonard Rauwolf. Reise in die Morgenländer (in German)., what's the actual concern here? Incomplete/underspecified bibliographic information, reasonable belief that the text does not support the statement, something else? DMacks 04:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the {{citationneeded}} for caracoli as a synonym for peaberry, I just added some notes to the Talk:Peaberry page that should suffice. Can we just remove the cn tag since we wikilink to Peaberry, or should we just add those two as <ref> here to avoid future complaints about being uncited? DMacks 05:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I say add a reference. For, some day, reviewers will gush over it when they see the reference section, and then they'll promptly promote this article to Featured. RedRabbit1983 12:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I admit I added the horrid "inappropriate citations" tag at the top, for the reason that a great many of the citations used here fall far short of WP:V standards: references such as Glamour magazine and coffee roaster web sites. There is a wealth of good secondary literature out there that should allow the replacement of most of these questionable citations with acceptable ones, and that has been on my "to do" list for some time now, but alas I have not had time yet to sit down and work on it (and my own two boxes of coffee references are currenty buried somewhere in my garage, awaiting unpacking from a recent move. RedRabbit1983, if you are able to tackle some of the referencing, I am sure we will all love you for it!--Margareta 18:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

While heavy reliance solely on coffee-roaster websites (especially only one such site for many refs, or only one site to support each issue) might not be ideal, I think of them as expert-voices on matters related to their business. Not sure I'd be confident in their writings about history or other things that seem to have a zillion legends and word-of-mouth variations unless they cited or agreed with some more-scholarly source, but at least factual present-day things. DMacks 18:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

One would hope, but unfortunately it's often not so. There are a huge number of myths and urban legends relating to coffee, which are repeated frequently on roaster (and advocacy) web sites. Roaster web sites are probably fairly reliable (though not necessarily unbiased) sources for information on roasting and retailing of coffee only. Also, using individual roaster web sites as citations for information that could be also be verified by non-commercial sources does risk looking like commercial spam. (Hmm, now I'm thinking... a "Myths" section ight nt be totally out of place. I'll put that on the "to do" list after fixing the citations...)--Margareta 18:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Etymology

This section starts by stating that the english word "tea" derived from "qahhwa". Is this a mistake, vandalism or am i just missing something? Epeeist smudge 10:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ayup, vandalism. Fixed, thanks for noticing it! DMacks 12:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I know this sounds dumb but does coffee prevent growth?69.221.247.31 02:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Caracoli

Mod Staff, I'm REALLY starting to get tired of this, guys. This is getting very very old. Just because you didn't write the article yourself doesn't mean it's flooded with falsehoods. You need to start accepting the fact that some of the entries on Wikipedia are True! It took me all of 3 minutes to verify what a Caracoli is. I'd like you all to take a moment and open up a web browser. There is this page, it's called Google. I realize that the internet is "big and scary", but there are ways to use it. Assuming you have the intellect required to understand what a browser is, click on the address bar, and type in www.google.com. Then, hit the Enter key. You can like, go there and learn stuff. 3 minutes? You editors on this site are astonishingly lazy, and astonishingly haughty. You all seem to have the attitude of "Well, I've never heard it, so it MUST be a lie". Use google before you go and start tagging someone else's words as lies.

I found the following, and translated via the online Translator, Babel Fish. http://www.vanhoutteocs.com/play/fr/s/the_coffee/glossary/c.html

Round coffee bean which one rather finds containing on the occasion in a cherry only one seed than the usual pair of flattened seeds. Because some believe that they contain more savours and flavours that the usual grains, the caracolis are very preferred. CameronB 03:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Cameron, please show a little more courtesy. Google is a good source for quick reference, but not every resource it yields is reliable. In this case, you're right — as the website indicates. But if for every claim that elicited suspicion, the reader turned to Google for verification, Google could deceive him with many falsehoods, as the sheer volume of rubbish on the web exceeds even the most cynical imagining. For claims like the coffee bean, Google can provide answers without spewing out rubbish, but it's clearly not reliable in every case. RedRabbit1983 10:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)