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Coffee (color)

color

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 8, 2025
Entity authorityQ2932937 ↗
Source-derived summary

Coffee is a brownish color that is a representation of a roasted coffee bean. Different types of coffee beans have different colors when roasted—the color coffee represents an average.

The first recorded use of coffee as a color name in English was in 1695.

The normalized color coordinates for coffee are identical to Tuscan brown, which was first recorded as a color name in English in 1913.

Variations of coffee

Café au Lait

The color displayed at right is café au lait, also known as coffee and milk or latte. This is a representation of the color of coffee mixed with milk, which when prepared commercially by a barista in a coffee shop is known as a latte.

The first recorded use of cafe au lait as a color name in English was in 1839.

The normalized color coordinates for café au lait are identical to Tuscan tan and French beige, which were first recorded as color names in English in 1926 and 1927, respectively.

Café Noir

The color displayed at right is café noir, also known as black coffee. It is a representation of the color of brewed black coffee.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Coffee (color)” is color. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Coffee and color, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1695, 1913, 1839, 1926—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Coffee and color is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “color” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2932937. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1695, 1913, 1839 and 1926.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Coffee (color)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Coffee (color) primary sources, Coffee (color) archive and Coffee research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Coffee (color)”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Coffee (color)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.