The History of Coffee

The history of coffee is based largely on legend. There are multiple stories, but the most widely quoted one is this:


An Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi discovered his goats prancing gingerly around a dark-leafed plant bearing bright red berries. Plucking a few berries from the tree, Kaldi soon discovered that the berries were the reason for his goats' increased energy. Kaldi then shared the berries with a monk from a nearby monastery, who was equally impressed with the berry's effects. The monks began to use the berries to stay awake during long periods of prayer and worship. Eventually, as the berry was spread monastery to monastery, it traveled all the way to Arabia.
The Arabs are believed to be the first people to trade coffee and cultivate it. Coffee cultivation appears as early as the fifteenth century in the Yemeni district of Arabia, and in Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Turkey by the sixteenth century. The widespread popularity of coffee in Arabia saw the invention of coffeehouses, where people would gather to drink coffee and talk to one another, sharing ideas and engaging each other in good conversation. (It would seem that coffeehouses today very much resemble the coffeehouses that existed centuries ago.) Pilgrims who traveled to Mecca each year inevitably experienced this phenomenon, and so word began to spread beyond the Middle East.
Despite the Arabs attempts to maintain a complete monopoly on coffee, by the seventeenth century it had spread to Europe. Just as it had done in Arabia, coffee became a sensation in Europe and coffeehouses sprang up everywhere.
During the early 1600s, coffee arrived in New York (then New Amsterdam) and commanded a great deal of popularity in early American culture. Despite coffee's success, tea remained king in colonial America...for awhile. The increasing taxes on tea further shifted preference toward coffee, with the Boston Tea Party finally sealing the fate of tea and opening the door for coffee's dominance in New England.
Later on during the seventeenth century, the Dutch managed to breach Arabia's coffee cultivating monopoly and succeeded in growing coffee on the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Celebes. For reasons unknown, the Dutch decided to present King Louis XIV with a coffee plant of his own for the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. Following in the footsteps all those who had possessed this coveted plant before him, King Louis XIV kept it under lock and key.
After being denied clippings from the King's tree, a persistent young naval officer on holiday from the island of Martinique snuck into the Botanical Gardens and stole a young coffee plant. An arduous journey complete with storms, a jealous passenger who tried to destroy the plant, doldrums, and a pirate attack, saw the little plant and a successful Gabriel de Clieu arrive safely in Martinique. The seedling was cultivated and produced some 18 million coffee trees in the next 50 years. The trees on Martinique also became the source for those found in the Caribbean, South and Central America.
Despite coffee's quick spread across the globe, there were still some countries who had yet to obtain this intriguing commodity. Coffee is said to have arrived  in Brazil by way of one Francisco de Mello Palheta. Palheta was sent to French Guiana for seedlings, but was unable to persuade them to give him any. Thankfully, Palheta had so enchanted the governor's wife that upon his departure, she presented him a farewell bouquet spiked with seeds.
By the end of the eighteenth century, coffee had established itself as one of the most profitable export crops in the world.


Though there is quite a bit of variety in the details of coffee's history, the fact remains that coffee was discovered and its potential realized. Today we have not only an excellent stimulant, but an art and an economic staple for millions worldwide.


My first and most fundamental question has been answered; where did coffee come from?
Hopefully some of you find this as interesting as I do.
Check in soon for another answered coffee query


:)

The Premise

Coffee. I have a lot of questions about it.

I've worked as a barista at a Tully's in Seattle for a little over a year now, but coffee has only now become something more than a job for me. There is so much to this substance, so many facets and things to learn. Over the past two weeks, I have not been able to focus on anything except my newfound fascination with coffee. What is it? Where did it come from? What does Italy have to do with coffee? How many different ways are there to brew it? How do you perform a proper cupping? How is it processed? Why is it processed that way? How old does a bean have to be to be "stale"?

There are a lot of questions that I want answers to. In an effort to inform myself and retain that information, as well as share some of my findings, I introduce you to my personal exploration of coffee.

Enjoy.