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So, who knew there was so much to Coffee History? We know you like coffee.....but just how much do you really know about Coffee History? Do you have any clue how much history is involved with that magic potion that wakes you up every morning...no?? Well, go fill up your coffee cup and come back and we'll begin your first Coffee History Lesson right here!
Coffee History 101.......The Beginning of Coffee.......
Did you know that coffee lovers owe a debt of thanks to a herd of goats for the creation of that most exquisite of beverages? Well, perhaps you've heard the legend that most coffee history buffs like to pass around the coffee houses....? Okay, well, the story goes sort of like this...a goat herder by the name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena, Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy laden fruit quickly spread throughout the region. Monks hearing about this amazing fruit, dried the berries so that they could be transported to distant monasteries. The monks eventually figured out how to reconstitute these berries in water, ate the fruit, and drank the liquid to provide stimulation for a more awakened time for prayer....
Okay, so you don't really care about the goats or how coffee really got its start just so long as it continues to give you a good jump start every day, right.........?
So, here is what is widely believed to be the real
History of Coffee
It looks as if the first trace came out of Abyssinia and was also sporadically in the vicinity of the Red Sea around seven hundred AD. Along with these people, other Africans of the same period also have a history of using the coffee berry pulp for more than one occasion like rituals and even for health. Coffee began to get more attention when the Arabs began cultivating it in their peninsulas around eleven hundred AD. It is speculated that trade ships brought the coffee their way. Coffee berries were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula, and were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. From there, coffee traveled to Turkey where coffee beans were roasted for the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed, and then boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage we enjoy today. The Arabs started making a drink that became quite popular called gahwa--- meaning to prevent sleep. Roasting and boiling the bean was how they made this drink. It became so popular among the Arabs that they made it their signature Arabian wine and it was used a lot during rituals. After the coffee bean was found to be a great wine and a medicine, someone discovered in Arabia that you could also make a different dark, delicious drink out of the beans, this happened somewhere around twelve hundred AD. After that it didn't take long and everyone in Arabia was drinking coffee. Everywhere these people traveled the coffee went with them. It made its way around to India, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and was then cultivated to a great extent in Yemen around fourteen hundred AD. Other countries would have gladly welcomed these beans if only the Arabs had let them. The Arabs killed the seed-germ making sure no one else could grow the coffee if taken elsewhere. Heavily guarding their plants, Yemen is where the main source of coffee stayed for several hundred years. Even with their efforts, the beans were eventually smuggled out by pilgrims and travelers. Coffee first arrived on the European continent by means of Venetian trade merchants. Once in Europe this new beverage fell under harsh criticism from the Catholic church. Many felt the pope should ban coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise, the pope, already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian beverage. Around 1475 the first coffee shop opens in Constantinople called Kiv Han two years after coffee was introduced to Turkey, in 1554 two coffee houses open there. People came pouring in to socialize, listen to music, play games and of course drink coffee. Some often called these places in Turkey the "school of the wise", because you could learn so much by just visiting the coffee house and listening to conversations. In the sixteen hundreds coffee enters Europe through the port of Venice. The Turkish warriors also brought the drink to Balkans, Spain, and North Africa. Not too much later the first coffee house opens in Italy. Coffee houses spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for intellectual exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage, and forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity. There were plenty of people also trying to ban coffee. Such as Khair Beg a governor of Mecca who was eventually executed and then there was Grand Vizir of the Ottoman Empire who closed down coffee houses throughout Turkey.
Thankfully not everyone thought this way.
In the 1700's, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of a French infantry captain who nurtured one plant on its long journey across the Atlantic. This plant, transplanted to the Caribbean Island of Martinique, became the predecessor of over 19 million trees on the island within 50 years. It was from this humble beginning that the coffee plant found its way to the rest of the tropical regions of South and Central America. Later in that century, the first coffee house opens in England. Coffee houses or "penny universities" charged a penny for admission and for a cup of coffee. The word "TIPS" (for service) has it's origin from an English coffee house.
Early in the 17th century, Edward Lloyd's coffee house opens in England. The Dutch became the first to commercially transport coffee. The first Parisian café opens in 1713 and King Louis XIV is presented with a lovely coffee tree. Sugar is first used as an addition to coffee in his court. Coffee was declared the national drink of the then colonized United States by the Continental Congress, in protest of the excessive tax on tea levied by the British crown.
So what do you think of your first Coffee History Lesson?
Good stuff, eh?
Know something about Coffee History that we don't? Want to share your information? We would like to invite you to send us more facts concerning Coffee History so we can share them here with other Coffee History Fans!
Civil War Coffee....
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