Beethoven enjoyed a cup of coffee, and was extremely particular about its preparation. He insisted that each cup he consumed be made with exactly 60 beans.
As recently as the 18th century, governments were trying to eradicate coffee. Among the many reasons for outlawing the beverage were its tendency to stimulate “radical thinking.” In 1746 Sweden took things to an extreme when it banned both coffee and coffee paraphernalia (i.e. cups and saucers).
In 1674, the Women's Petition Against Coffee claimed the beverage was turning British men into "useless corpses" and proposed a ban on it for anyone under the age of 60.
Though Finland does not produce any beans of its own, its citizens drink a lot of the brown stuff—the most of any country in the world.
The world’s most expensive coffee Kopi Luwak actually comes from animal poop. In Indonesia, a wild animal known as the Asian palm civet cannot resist the bright red coffee cherries that abound, even though they can’t digest the actual coffee beans. The beans pass through the civets' systems without being fully digested. At which point, some brave coffee farmer collects the beans from the civets’ droppings, (hopefully) thoroughly washes them, and sells them for more than $600 per pound.
Instant coffee has been around for a while, making its first appearance in England in 1771. But it would take another 139 years for the first mass-produced instant coffee to be introduced (and patented) in the U.S. in 1910.
Researchers have had great success in converting coffee into biodiesel. Best of all, used grounds work just as well.