An Ethiopian legend
Coffee grown globally can trace its inheritance back centuries to the prehistoric coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau. There, folklore states that the goat herder Kaldi first discovered the promise of these treasured beans.
The tale goes that that Kaldi discovered coffee after he observed that after consuming the berries from a specific tree, his goats became so active that they did not want to go to sleep at night.
Kaldi conveyed his conclusions to the abbot of the local monastery, who prepared a drink with the berries and discovered that it kept him vigilant through the long hours of late afternoon prayer. The abbot disclosed his findings to the other monks at the monastery, and awareness of the energizing berries began to expand.
As word progressed east and coffee extended to the Arabian Peninsula, it started a journey which would carry these beans across the world.
The Arabian Peninsula
Coffee trade and cultivation commenced on the Arabian Peninsula. By the 15th century, coffee was being produced in the Yemeni district of Arabia and in the 16th century it was known in Egypt, Persia, Syria, and Turkey.
Coffee was not only appreciated in homes, but also in the numerous public coffee houses named qahveh khaneh, which started to emerge in cities across the Near East. The fame of the coffee houses was matchless and people visited them for all types of social activity.
Not only did the customers sip coffee and participate in conversation, but they also watched performers, played chess, listened to music and kept current on the news. Coffee houses rapidly became such a significant center for the interchange of info that they were frequently discussed as “Schools of the Wise.”
With hundreds of pilgrims visiting the holy city of Mecca each year from across the globe, understanding of this “wine of Araby” started to spread.
Coffee comes to Europe
European explorers to the Near East fetched back narratives of an uncommon dark black beverage. By the 17th century, coffee was introduced in Europe and was becoming trendy across the continent.
Some people responded to this new beverage with fear or suspicion, naming it the “bitter creation of Satan.” The local clergy doomed coffee when it came to Venice. The debate was so great that Pope Clement VIII was called upon arbitrate. He agreed to try the beverage for himself before getting to a decision, and discovered the drink so filling that he gave it papal consent.
In spite of such controversy, coffee houses were rapidly becoming hubs of communication and social motion in the main cities of Austria, England, Germany, France and Holland. In England “penny universities” bounced up, so named because for the charge of a penny one could buy a cup of coffee and engage in inspiring conversation.
Coffee began to substitute the normal breakfast drinks of the time, wine and beer. Those who sipped coffee in place of alcohol started the day energized and alert, and not astonishingly, the excellence of their work was greatly enhanced.
Many industries grew out of these particular coffee houses.
The New World
In the mid-1600’s, coffee was taken to New Amsterdam, afterwards called New York.
Nevertheless coffee houses quickly began to emerge, tea sustained to be the preferred drink in the New World until around 1773, when the colonists rebelled in contradiction of a heavy tax on tea forced by King George III. The rebellion, known as the Boston Tea Party, would forever alter the American drinking partiality to coffee. It was definitely a coffee revolution.
Coffee, the favorite drink of the civilized world.” – Thomas Jefferson”
Plantations across the world
As request for the beverage remained to spread, there was aggressive struggle to grow coffee outside of Arabia.
The Dutch lastly got plantlets in the latter part of the 17th century. Their first efforts to sow them in India failed, but they were fruitful with their pains in Batavia, on the island of Java in which is currently Indonesia.
The plants flourished and soon the Dutch had a growing and productive trade in coffee. They then extended the farming of coffee trees to the islands of Celebes and Sumatra.
Coming to the Americas
In 1714, the Mayor of Amsterdam gave the present of a fledgling coffee plant to King Louis XIV of France. The King commanded it to be ingrained in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. In 1723, a fresh naval officer, Gabriel de Clieu attained a sprout from the King’s plant. In spite of a perplexing voyage, complete with dreadful weather conditions, a vandal who tried to terminate the sprout and a pirate incident — he succeeded in transporting it securely to Martinique.
Once implanted, the seedling not only prospered, but it’s attributed with the blowout of about 17 million coffee plants on the island of Martinique in the following half century. Even more unbelievable is that this sprout was the parent of all coffee plants all over the Caribbean, Central and South America.
The well-known Brazilian coffee owes its being to Francisco de Mello Palheta, who was directed by the ruler to French Guiana to contract coffee seedlings. The French were not eager to share, but the French Ruler’s wife, enchanted by his attractiveness, provided him with a large bunch of flowers before he departed — suppressed inside were sufficient coffee seeds to commence what is now a billion-dollar industry.
Travelers and Missionaries, traders and colonists persisted to transport coffee seeds to new lands, and coffee plants were implanted worldwide. Plantations were founded in wonderful tropical forests and on rocky mountain highlands. Some harvests succeeded, while others were brief. New nations were inaugurated on coffee markets. Riches were made and lost. By the end of the 18th century, coffee had developed into one of the world’s best lucrative export crops. Next to crude oil, coffee is the most wanted product in the world.
