Coffee-drinking in the United States.
The United States is the world’s largest consumer of coffee and cacao. She holds third rank among the importing nations in the importations of tea. On an average the annual importation of coffee, tea, and cacao is about $100,000,000, of which three fourths is coffee. The bulk of the coffee and cacao imported comes from other American countries; Asia supplies the tea. Brazil furnishes by far the largest amount of coffee, nearly eighty per cent. Other South American countries, Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies supply practically all the rest. In twenty years the importation of coffee to the United States had doubled. The per capita consumption now amounts to 10.04 pounds. The consumption of tea amounts to 1.07 pounds per capita. In ten years the importation of cacao has more than trebled, amounting in 1908 to 83,000,000 pounds. The increasing use of these stimulants can not fail to produce an army of nervous, irritated, and irritating men and women of the coming generation.