The Delicious History of Coffee

The Delicious History of Coffee
It’s hard to imagine a world without coffee- a world where we’d have to go about our daily routines without that morning cuppa; a world devoid of espresso machines and coffee shops, where exhausted employees and workers across all demographics would congregate over hot, steaming, and delicious cups of coffee to jolt themselves back to a state of attentiveness.
Coffee is an integral part of modern society, but do you know how it gradually became one of the world’s most popular beverages? Read on to find out.
The Coffee Legend
Coffee is widely believed to have been discovered by an Ethiopian goatherd sometime in the 9th century A.D. According to popular folklore, this goatherd, Kaldi, chanced upon his goats eating the red coffee berries and discovered that they’d made his animals more alert and vigilant. After having tried them himself, he realized that the plant had stimulating properties.
News about this ‘wonder plant’ did the rounds in the region, and individuals residing in a local monastery started consuming these berries to ward off sleep and lethargy during their long hours of prayer.
Coffee soon became renowned for its energizing properties by the Ethiopians, and over time, its cultivation spread to Yemen and Egypt. By the 15th century, coffee had become a staple in Yemen’s Sufi monasteries, after which its consumption became prevalent in Northern Africa and the Middle Eastern nations.
The Spread of Islam and the Subsequent Surge in Coffee Consumption
The berries of the coffee shrub were used in wines and drinks like qahwa by the Arabs, till an accidental discovery- which most likely took place in modern day Saudi Arabia between 1000-1200 A.D. - deemed coffee beans to be far more delicious when they were roasted to make a hot beverage.
Coffee soon became a staple in mosques, and it went wherever Islam went- to the further reaches of North Africa, the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean nations, and Asian countries like India. However, the Arabs were fiercely protective about their coffee and even boiled or sun dried the beans to kill their seed germ so that no other region could cultivate the plant. For this reason, Yemen remained the world’s largest coffee producer till the 1600s, when some coffee beans may have been smuggled to other countries.
The world’s first ever coffee shop, Kiv Han, originated in Constantinople (modern day Turkey) in 1475. Soon, coffee evolved from being a staple in religious centers to being a popular drink of the masses that soon took root in every corner of the Arab world.
Europe’s Love Affair with Coffee
Coffee wasn’t really known in Europe until the end of the 16th century, when European diplomats and travellers who visited the Arab nations took to the beverage and went back home to narrate tales about this wonder drink. Venice was the first place in Europe that established the continent’s first coffeehouse, Caffe Florian, in 1683. Even then, coffee trade in Europe was low-key till the British, who were, till then, traditional tea drinkers, took to full scale coffee trading.
The Ottoman Empire was responsible for introducing coffee in France, where the drink became the elixir of high society. Over time, however, it was embraced by one and all, and Le Procope, France’s oldest coffee shop which still stands today, was set up in 1686 to also become the favorite hangout of noted intellectuals, artists, and thinkers like Diderot and Voltaire.
Due to its ‘ties’ with intellectuals and civil activists back in the day, coffee was seen as a threat by the Vatican, till Pope Clement VIII happened to drink it himself and fell in love with coffee, thereby baptizing it and deeming it an ‘acceptable Christian beverage’!
Coffee and the New World
Coffee was introduced to the Americas in 1607 by Captain John Smith. Over time, coffeehouses cropped up in colonies like Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, etc., and coffee became a favorite morning drink- especially among American revolutionaries like John Adams. The Boston Tea Party also played a huge role in cementing coffee’s role in American society, where people believed it was their ‘moral duty’ to shun British tea and opt for coffee instead.
On the other side of the world, the Dutch became the masters of coffee trade and exports after cultivating coffee in Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka) and their then colony in Indonesia, Java. Like the Arabs before them, the Dutch, as well as the French, were fiercely protective about their coffee monopoly- until the then Brazilian Colonel, Francisco de Melo Palheta, managed to smuggle in coffee seeds into the country.
The rest, as they say, is history, and Brazil went on to become the world’s greatest coffee empire.