Imagine if you stopped by your favorite coffee shop for your usual cup in the morning and found that coffee was rationed? For a while during World War II, that was the case, as consumer hoarding caused coffee to be rationed. This week (July 28) in 1943, President Roosevelt ended the program because imports had rebounded from their drop when the war began. Coffee is widely thought to have been introduced into America by Captain John Smith, one of the founders of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Consumption of coffee jumped after both the Boston Tea Party and the beginning of Prohibition. Now, Americans drink an average of just over 24 gallons of coffee each year in all its forms — regular and decaffeinated, as well as espresso and latte.