Parts Used
Beans

Properties
Stimulant, anti-asthmatic, analgesic

Common Uses
Coffee is generally used as a brewed beverage. It may provide some relief for headache, ashtma, fever, vertigo.

Locating and Handling
Purchase beans or ground coffee at grocery store.

Caution
Excessive amounts of coffee may produce numerous side effects, including irregular heartbeat, and may raise blood sugar and cholesterol levels. It has also been linked to certain kinds of cancer.

Origin
Native to Africa. Cultivated in Arabia where the beverage was first boiled and served hot in 1000 a.d.

Early Herbal Notes "MEDICAL USE -- It may require a good deal of sagacity to determine how far the French custom of drinking coffee immediately after dinner is right; but I think it can admit of no dispute, whether a dish of coffee or a bottle of wine may then be less prejudicial to health. I think, however, it is less injurious to drink coffee immediately after dinner than later in the evening; and at least for one very obvious reason: Coffee most certainly promotes watchfulness; or, in other words, it suspends the inclination to sleep. To those therefore who wish not to be too subject to this inclination, coffee is undoubtedly preferable to wine, or perhaps to any other liquor we know." ... "Persons afflicted with asthma have found great relief, and even a cure, by drinking very strong coffee, and those of a phlegmatic habit would do well to take it for breakfast. It is rather of a drying nature, and with corpulent habits it would be advisable to take it for breakfast."