托福听力荟萃 16（在线收听）

A lot of people in the United Statesare coffee drinkers. Over the last few years, a trend has been developing to introduce ______,specially ______coffees, known as "_______coffees" into the American market.Boston seems to have been the _______ of this trend.……

【填空答案】

premium:adj. of high quality 高级的，优质的

blended:adj. combined or mixed together so that the constituent parts are indistinguishable 混合的

gourmet:n. ［C］someonewho knows a lot about food and wine and who enjoys good food and wine 美食家

birthplace:n. ［Cusually singular］theplace where someone was born, especially someone famous （尤指名人的）出生地；theplace where something first started to happen or exist 发源地，发祥地

【听力原文】

A lot of people in the United States arecoffee drinkers. Over the last few years, a trend has been developing tointroduce premium, specially blended coffees --- knows as "gourmetcoffees" --- into the American market.

Boston seems to have been the birthplace of this trend. In fact, major gourmetcoffee merchants from other cities like Seattle and San Francisco came toBoston, where today they're engaged in a kind of "coffee war" withBoston's merchants. They are all competing for a significant share of thegourmet coffee market.

Surprisingly, the competition among these leading gourmet coffee businesseswill not hurt any of them. Experts predict that the gourmet coffee market inthe United States is growing and will continue to grow, to the point thatgourmet coffee will soon capture half of what is now a 1.5-million-dollarmarket and will be an 8-million-dollar market by 1999.

Studies have shown that coffee drinkers who convert to gourmet coffee seldom goback to the regular brands found in supermarkets. As a result, these brandswill be the real losers in the gourmet coffee competition.