From its origins in ancient Ethiopia, to being offered on the Internet, coffee has a truly fascinating story. Read on, and discover how what was once a goat's favorite snack, has become.
- The Goat Who Discovered Coffee
It is said that an Ethiopian goat herder (often called Kaldi) discovered coffee. One day the goat herder saw his goats cavorting in a field and wondered why they were acting so, exceptionally "goaty." Noticing they were eating the berries of a perennially struggling little tree, he tried one himself. He found the fruit of this tree to be fairly bland, but vaguely sweet and mildly refreshing. After a few minutes around the meadows he found himself feeling quite "goaty" himself - capering and gamboling.
Realizing that the usual boundaries of propriety between a goat herder and his goats were in a state of alarming deterioration, the noble (could the discoverer of coffee be any less?) goat herder composed himself as best he could, gathered up a handful of the berries, and took them to a local abbot. The abbot tried them and thought they were a gift from God created so he and his monks could pray all night.
- Coffee - The First Granola
The arabica coffee tree is indigenous to Ethiopia (the home of the apocryphal Kaldi) and had been known there since "time immemorial." Sometime early in its history, a dried version of its berry was developed, especially for travel, and was either eaten straight or mixed with dried grain. These two preparations comprised a pre-medieval "powerbar" and a very early form of granola.
- Coffee, Sun Tea & Wine
The fruit of the coffee tree was eventually transported from Ethiopia to Yemen and cultivated there. It was in Yemen that a sun tea was made of coffee cherries, beans, and a few leaves. Shortly thereafter, it's probable that, this sweetened sun tea spontaneously fermented, and became a kind of wine. This accident of nature thereby provided the popular combination of alcohol and caffeine that today is most typically called "Irish coffee", or coffee spiked with alcohol.
- Coffee's First Name
Coffee "wine" was the first beverage to be named with the original word for coffee: qahwah. This word does not mean "giver of strength" as is often proposed in books and articles on coffee, but rather comes from an Arabic verb meaning "to put one off." Coffee wine "put one off" sleep when consumed in moderation and "put one off" essentially everything if consumed to excess.
- Coffee Medicine
Its recreational potential notwithstanding, in its early years "qahwah" was generally considered a medicinal beverage, probably because of its obvious energizing effect. It was not held primarily as an alcoholic drink because there were other more easily fermented beverages available, notably a form of mead-wine made from honey and water.
- Antidote to Drunkeness
When Muhammad arrived in Medina, (around 620 A.D.) he found rampant drunkenness in the city. Attempting to restore attention on God, he decreed that the faithful should no longer consume any alcoholic beverages. After a time, only the coffee sun tea, known as qishr, was consumed. Qishr is still drunk today, either as a coffee sun tea or as a beverage brewed by boiling water.
- Brewed Coffee, Finally
It was not until the early 1400s, that brewed coffee was discovered. This was about the same time that metal pots, in which water could be boiled over a fire, appeared in that part of the East. This made it possible for the coffee sun tea to be made more quickly by boiling leaves, cherries, and seeds in water. The combination of fire and coffee seeds most probably led to the creation of coffee. Perhaps a pot of tea boiled dry or tipped into the fire, giving the world the first (very rustic), brewed coffee from roasted beans.
- The First Coffee House
Venice, Italy lays claim to establishing the first coffee house on the Piazza di San Marco in 1792. The French and Austrians come in a close second by greatly improving the look, style, and ambiance of their shops. From these humble beginnings, coffee spread rapidly throughout Europe and the developed world.
- Baptized by the Pope
One of the first actual appearances of coffee in Europe during the reign of Pope Clement VIII. The brew was then known to be the drink of choice of Moslems. This immediately alarmed the Vatican who wanted to outlaw the brew as an invention of Satan. The pope,however, had the desire to know learn more about the beverage and fell immediately in love with its aroma. Tempted, he tried a cupful and decided that it was "too good to leave to the infidels," and instead of banning it, he "baptized" it as "a truly Christian beverage."
- New York, New York
It wasn't until about 1683 that Americans discovered coffee. New York, known as New Amsterdam at the time, was a tea totaling city, still borrowing the afternoon tea habits of their English brothers. One of the first recorded coffee drinkers was William Penn, who, once having settled in his Pennsylvania Colony, hired a New York importer to secure a stash of coffee for his personal use.
