Ahhh, Sunday, the day of leisure. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as sitting with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. Take a sip. Inhale that rich aroma. Savor. Then stop and give thanks to the insatiable appetites of goats. For it was frisky goats and their curious Ethiopian herder that discovered the wild coffee bean in 850 A.D.

It would be another 150 years before the Turks turned the bitter, invigorating bean into a boiled drink they named “qahwa” and marketed it on the promise it prevented sleep.

Today we call it coffee. Java. Joe. Go-go juice.

While most of us drink it in traditional form — regular drip-brewed or percolated from special machines at home — an ever-growing number of Americans are adding gourmet blends and espresso-mixed concoctions such as cappuccinos, mochas and frappuccinos to their coffee repertoire.

Folger’s calls it the best part of waking up. But times have changed. It’s a 24-hour pleasure — necessary, guilty or otherwise.

We love our coffee. We need our coffee.

We make a pot at home, fill our travel mugs with brew for the road. Make daily treks to the coffeehouse. And we pick it up at the drive-through coffee hut.

Take Julia Cook of Fremont, who called us on her cell phone as she rolled up to the drive-through window at Happily Ever After Coffee Place in Fremont.

“Good morning, Julia. The Julia Special?” says a disembodied voice.

Cook apologizes for the intrusion, but just can’t get through the morning without her latte, she explained. The Julia Special is her daily coffee drink:  a latte with sugar-free hazelnut and sugar-free vanilla, no foam, extra hot, served venti (the biggest cup), Cook said.

“It has to be extra hot or I drink it too fast and I am mad because it’s gone,” she confessed.

She’s hardly alone.

Coffee is not just our morning kick-start. It’s our treat. Our necessity and our guilty little pleasure. We want it. We need it. We expect it to be available wherever we are — and in all forms, traditional black, premium blends and exotic sounding drinks, from lattes to cappuccinos, frappuccinos and mochas. And so the business world has responded with coffee bars in our libraries, hospitals, banks, churches,  stores and government office buildings.

  Even our vending machines offer us the ability to customize our brew — if you ever need the emergency room at BryanLGH Medical Center West, check out the cool coffee vending machine in the waiting room. Bring quarters!

Coffee has its own language. Grown only within 1,000 miles of the earth’s equator — between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn — each region has its own coffee variety, its own wonderful, unique taste. Coffee connoisseurs know their beans, their origin and their exquisitely unique tastes.

And regardless of whether we are coffee snobs or coffee adventurers, we are keenly aware that the coffeehouse we frequent, as well as the label on the cup in our hand, says a whole lot more about who and what we are than just that we need a caffeine fix.

All the world loves coffee — and has since the drink’s discovery in 1000 A.D.

But no one loves coffee as much as Americans. We consume one-third of the world’s coffee.

Eighty-two percent of adults in the U.S. drink coffee — 56 percent of us drink it every day, according to the 2006 National Coffee Drinking Trends survey of the National Coffee Association of the U.S.A. The typical U.S. coffee drinker downs 3.4 cups of java a day. In the central states — which includes Nebraska — we drink more, about 3.7 cups a day, says the NCA.

“Coffee is one of the defining American drinks,” said Beau Weston, a sociology professor who teaches the popular “The Cafe and Public Life” class at Kentucky’s Centre College.

Coffee is steeped in a rich social history, said Mark Pendergrast, author of “Uncommon Grounds.”

 It is the drink of  the intellectual and the common man. It’s the drink upon which nations were founded, governments overturned and divorces justified. The drink that helped found Lloyd’s of London and the New York Stock Exchange. The drink that inspired the Boston Tea Party and later inspired us to switch from afternoon tea time to the coffee break.

Coffee is the drink of men. The drink of women. And increasingly the drink of teens and young adults.

It is the drink religious leaders once called Satan’s beverage, until they tried it and discovered they liked its kick — especially for staying awake during prayers. Even Pope Clement VIII, who was urged by his advisors to banish the brew, reserved judgment until he tasted it and then decreed: “It would a be pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.”

Today, coffee is no longer just a breakfast beverage — although woe is the world when a java junkie must go without. Coffee is becoming an anytime drink, which is why consumption — especially speciality coffee drink consumption — is on the rise in this country.

“Americans are making coffee a bigger part of their lives, expanding attitudes and behaviors that are driving new levels of consumption,” said NCA president and CEO Robert Nelson in a press release.

“People view coffee not only as a morning staple, but also as a treat, an event and a social outlet,” said Joe DeRupo, NCA spokesman.

History says we always have used our coffee as a means for social discourse.

 After all, the German term “kaffee klatsch” was coined in the early 1900s to describe the women who routinely gathered over coffee to gossip. Over time the coffee klatsch lost its derogatory meaning as people from all walks of life — businessmen, political leaders, neighbors and strangers — used coffee as the means to gather around the table together.

Why coffee? Why not meet for milk? Gossip over grape juice? Converse over cider? Tsk over tea?

“There does seem to be something about coffee that promotes conversation,” Pendergrast said. “It gives you a feeling of being energized and calm at the same time — unless you drink too much of it.”

Admittedly, caffeine is one reason coffee is so popular. Medical studies confirm what we always knew — coffee gives our brains and bodies a kick-start in the morning. It keeps us going in the afternoon and allows us to accomplish all of our undones at the end of a long day.

But that’s only part of the answer.

We like the taste of coffee — acquired as it may be. After all, we’ve added coffee flavoring to our ice cream, yogurt, cookies,  cakes and chocolates. Coca-Cola just released Blak, which combines Coke with coffee essence.

We also like coffee for its choices. Regular. Decaf. Premium. Flavored. We can get it 24 hours a day.

And coffee makes a social statement about who we are.

Early in American history it was “the cowboy drink.”

“It was seen not as a sissy drink, but one of people with real work to do,” Weston said.

“Coffee has always had a public dimension,” said Bryant Simon, history professor at Temple University and author of the upcoming book “Consuming Starbucks.”

“It’s always been an adult beverage,” Simon said. “People have always gathered someplace to drink it. Coffee has an aura of sophistication about it.”

With the popularity of coffeehouses and coffee bars in just about every public place we stop, we can get it anytime, all the time. That has not only changed the times of day we drink it, but where we can get it and how old we are when we start drinking it, according to the National Coffee Association.

“Frappuccinos extended the coffee business outside of just cold weather,” Simon said. “Now people can get ‘adult milkshakes’ whenever they want.

“So we’ve got people drinking lots more coffee out, over a lot more hours of the day, and generally they are drinking better coffee,” he said.

NCA statistics find the biggest increases in daily coffee consumption are among the 25- to 39-year-old and 18- to 24-year-old groups.

And that is due — in great part — to Starbucks, say the sociologists and historians.

Starbucks revolutionized the coffeehouse, Simon said.

Coffeehouses were associated with subversive, counter-culture movements, attracting nonconformists, beatniks and artists. They were seen as a little bit dangerous, Simon said.

Starbucks blended that traditional coffeehouse look with a more popular culture atmosphere, Simon said.

Starbucks also changed Americans’ expectations about their coffee.

“It educated the public on what espresso is supposed to be like and the different kinds of coffee,” Weston said.

“And it got them used to paying a lot more for coffee.” We used to pay a dime for a bottomless cup of joe, but now it’s hard to find it for less than a dollar — and we barely blink when we pay close to $5 for a venti specialty coffee drink.

That has spelled success for the independent coffeehouses, he said.

Dale Nordyke, co-owner of The Mill coffeehouses in Lincoln, remembers back to 1988 when patrons walking in for the first time  wore suspicious scowls.

“It was too weird and funny,” he said. “Now, everybody is used to it.”

The coffeehouse is still a place of public discourse, but its clientele represent all generations, from latte-slurping high schoolers to plain-coffee-drinking seniors.

College students often gather at coffeehouses in the evenings to do their homework. The campus library doesn’t serve mocha, the dorms don’t brew lattes, explained Sarah Dempsey, a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who spends many an evening at Lincoln’s Coffee House.

“It’s not necessarily quiet, but a lot of people study here, so we’re kind of all in it together,” the 22-year-old said. “And it’s nice to have coffee at your disposal.”

Said Brett Kennedy, another 22-year-old at UNL: “It’s a low-pressure social atmosphere. But you can also do your own thing. You can just relax and get some coffee.”

And that’s the allure of coffeehouses, regardless of your age, profession or expectation, said Weston, the Kentucky professor, who holds his office hours in coffee shops and spends much of his free time in them as well.

“Being in a coffeehouse suggests you might be open to a conversation,” he said. “Many people read in coffeehouses, and what they are reading is an entree for conversation with strangers. It creates a connection for the kinds of things to talk about. With other situations (in life) there is not the same opening.”

Ray Oldenburg, author of “The Great Good Place,” says coffee and coffeehouses satisfy deep American human needs. He calls coffeehouses the third place Americans need — after home and work.

Taverns were the original third place, Weston said. “But the advantage of coffee over alcohol is that you can remember the conversation the next day. And it doesn’t make you truculent and violent, although it may make you a little bit nervous,” he said.

Adrienne Saur, a barista for five years, sees it every day.

“People are really thirsty for connection,” said Saur who works at Mo Java and its Mo Java II cart cafe in  Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center. People come in to visit, escape their worries or get a kick-start on their day.

“I see nurses, doctors and techies. … I see a lot of people who are worried about someone,” Saur said. “Caffeine is a good drug for either.”

Part of the appeal of coffeehouses is people can meet if they want to, or not — and no one is hassling you,  Pendergrast said.

“It’s not like a bar where people are drunk. You can have interesting conversations or be left alone. You can check your e-mail and surf the Internet. And you can get something nice to drink,” he said.

Many customers strike up conversations with Saur — or other patrons.

“People can really talk about controversial things in a non-judgmental way,” Saur said. “They can talk about abortion and euthanasia without people getting riled up.”

The discourse may be open, but we’ve progressed to the point where the label on your coffee cup is used to judge who you are, said Simon.

He poses the question: If he asked you to meet him at Dunkin Donuts, what would you think?

Would your perspective change if he suggested meeting at Starbucks?

He maintains most people would answer yes.  The coffee and the coffeehouse say “something about who I am,” he said.

And drinking coffee, as well as the type of coffee we drink, gives us our American identity.

Reporters Hilary Stohs-Krause and Jeff Korbelik contributed to this story.

Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.

It’s not just coffee anymore

Remember when you’d go to a diner and order coffee — black? Or with sugar and/or cream?

You can still get a standard cup of joe at a coffeehouse, but specialty drinks are today’s beverages of choice.

Here’s a rundown of the popular drinks, including calorie counts for the nutritious-minded from the Starbucks Web site:

Coffee (16 ounces). No description needed. Calories: 10.

Hot chocolate (16 ounces). Steamed milk with mocha syrup, vanilla syrup and whipped cream. Calories: 450.

Espresso (1 ounce). Strong, intense and dark, an espresso “shot” serves as the building block for most beverages. Calories: 5.

Caffe Americano Espresso (16 ounces). Espresso combined with hot water. Calories: 15.

Caffe Latte Espresso (16 ounces). Espresso combined with steamed milk. Calories: 260.

Caffe Mocha Espresso (16 ounces). Espresso combined with steamed milk and mocha syrup. Calories: 400.

Cappuccino Espresso (16 ounces). Espresso combined with steamed milk (less than a latte). Calories: 150.

Coffee Frappuccino Blended Coffee (16 ounces). Coffee and milk blended with ice. Calories: 260.