Coffee. Love it or hate it, but you can’t stay indifferent to it. We all know coffee contains caffeine, is made from beans, and so on. But there’s so much more to it…

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Watch

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Glossary

• snob – a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people
• lifespan – the length of time for which a person or animal lives or a thing functions
• outlive – (of a person) live longer than (another person)
• urge – try earnestly or persistently to persuade (someone) to do something
• munch – eat (something) steadily and often audibly
• punctuation – the marks, such as full stop, comma, and brackets, used in writing to separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning
• naval blockade – delaying, disrupting, or destroying of a nation’s lines of communication at sea by the use of e.g. battleships
• truce – truce

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Think about it

Answer the questions below. Pause at times indicated in brackets.

• What was Ludvig van Beethoven’s relation to coffee? (0:20)
• How did King Gustav want to prove that coffee was harmful to health? (0:50)
• What happened in 1777 in Prussia? (1:04)
• What do goats have to do with coffee? (1:24)
• Who drinks the most coffee? (1:46)
• How many cups of coffee did Balzac drink? How did it affect his writing? (2:11)
• What is the connection between Starbucks’ and Moby Dick? (2:38)
• What is the connection between webcams and coffee? (2:49)
• What is the connection between coffee and poop?

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Practice makes perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the word in bold.

heavily    –    adjusted    –    in    –    average    –    at    –    contains

Coffee _______ lots of antioxidants (it’s the biggest source of antioxidants in an ________ Western diet!) that help the body fight chemicals called “free radicals.” As a result, coffee drinkers are ________ a lower risk of diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease, Type II Diabetes, and Heart Disease. Here’s the thing, though: coffee drinkers are also more likely to have unhealthy habits such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol ________ , and eating red meat, so the study shown above has been ________ to show what could happen if these other factors weren’t ________ effect.

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Fill in the blank spaces with the correct forms of the words in caps.

The Coffee Belt contains all of the regions that have the conditions needed for coffee growing. Since the plants ________ CLEAR require lots of ________ SUN and ________ WARM, it’s pretty easy to say that this belt makes a good outline for the best ________ TROPIC vacations, too!

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Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words. Use one word per blank space.

________ most expensive coffee in the world is made ________ elephant dung, and it’s called Black Ivory coffee. It costs $50 ________ cup. Luwak, aka civet, coffee is made ________ feeding coffee beans to mongoose and then using ________ feces. It costs $160 per pound.

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There are 7 mistakes in the passage below. Find and correct them.

The Coffee Belt contain all of the regions who have the conditions needed to coffee growing. Above the plants clearly require lots of sunshine and warmth, its pretty easy to say what this belt makes a good outline for a best tropical vacations, too!

Answers

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