Whether it's that eye-opening first morning cup of Joe, leaded coffee poured into a styrofoam cup at morning break or the intoxicating smell of coffee brewing in a favorite java shop, Americans are crazy for coffee.
Saturday is the day to celebrate all that high-octane insanity with National Coffee Day.
Becky Johnston, 59, of Belpre is a 10-year member of "the coffee posse" at Marietta's Stoked Coffee who likes her brew caffeinated.
Article Photos
SHARON BOPP The Marietta Times
Jewel McKowan, barrista at Stoked Coffee in Marietta, prepares a frozen buckeye latte for a customer Tuesday.
"Decaffeinated never passes my lips," Johnston said. "If I want coffee, there's a reason for it."
A herd of goats in sixth-century Ethiopia that became quite active after eating berries from the coffee shrubs where they grazed are credited with helping a goat herder named Kaldi discover the delightful elixir known as coffee.
It took another century for brewed coffee to increase in popularity in Arabia and pour out to the rest of the world from there.
Fact Box
At a glance
World coffee production is estimated at 110 to 120 million bags per year.
Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, or the equivalent of 146 billion cups of coffee per year, making the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world.
Coffee represents 75 percent of all the caffeine consumed in the United States.
An average-size cup of coffee measures 9 oz.
Some 54 percent of Americans over age 18 drink coffee every day.
Sources: coffee-statistics.com, statisticbrain.com.
Today, coffee lovers around the world drink more than 400 billion cups of coffee a year.
Sara Allman, 33, of Williamstown said she doesn't know how many cups of coffee she drinks a day.
"It just depends on the day," Allman said. "I know I just drink it all day. I can almost be addicted to it."
Stephanie Snyder, 31, of Vincent said the afternoon is her favorite time for coffee.
"It's kind of a slow time at work in the afternoon and it gives you a little bit of energy," said Snyder.
Weekday mornings from about 7 to 8 at Stoked Coffee are Johnston's peak time for sipping a cuppa.
"For me, it's a social thing. It just doesn't feel right if I don't have coffee with that group," said Johnston.
Johnston and her coffee posse "solve all the...city of Marietta's problems. We run the city from the table in the corner."
At Skyline Cafe in Marietta, owner Steve Barros enjoys what he has nicknamed his "Mensa group" of morning coffee drinkers-a group of retired professionals that also work hard to find solutions to the city's dilemmas.
"They take over my lounge every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday like clockwork," said Barros.
Members of Skyline Cafe's Mensa group prefer Barros' dark roast coffee, a blend of Central American, South American and Indonesian beans.
Barros has the blend specially and his espresso coffee prepared by a small, custom house roaster based in Columbus.
At Stoked Coffee, store manager Donna McKnight serves her early-rising posse a medium roast called the house java.
When autumn arrives, patrons at Stoked Coffee and Skyline Cafe enjoy pumpkin-flavored coffee concoctions.
"Come October and fall, pumpkin is the big flavor," said Barros.
Other favorite fall drinks at Stoked Coffee are "cinnabon," a mix of coffee and cinnamon, brown sugar with shortbread syrup flavors and "cup o nuts," a blend of coffee and almond, hazelnut, macadamia and coconut-flavored syrups.
As the Christmas season approaches in November, Skyline Cafe and Stoked Coffee feature peppermint-flavored coffee drinks.
Rebecca Diehl, 22, of Marietta reflected on her coffee-drinking habits as she sipped on a frozen pumpkin spice latte at Stoked Coffee.
A fan of frozen mochas in her teens, Diehl said she switched to straight-up, traditional coffee as a Marietta College student.
"The further along in college I got the more need for coffee I had," she confessed.
All this coffee drinking could cause quite a case of the jitters for some fans. But many say they could not make the switch to decaffeinated coffee.
"I never drink decaf," said Diehl. "I stop drinking sometime in the afternoon if I need to sleep that night."
In celebration of National Coffee Day, some stores are offering free coffee Saturday, including McDonald's.
Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop is offering special coupons giving one free coffee to each customer who purchases a coffee on Saturday. The coupon is available on the chain's Facebook page.
To send a free National Coffee Day e-card to your favorite coffee lovers, go to punchbowl.com.
