Origins of coffee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. The Arabs called it "qahwe" (wine) and the Turks called it kahve. The word entered Italian as caffè subsequently translating to English as Coffee in 1598.
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[edit] Origins of coffee
According to the International Coffee Organization,[1], Kaldi, an Ethiopian goatherd was amazed at the lively behavior of his goats after chewing red coffee berries (Legend of Dancing Goats). It is almost certain that slaves taken from present day Sudan into Yemen and Arabia used to chew on the succulent outer cherry flesh, thus by accident their masters found out its potency. Coffee began trade through the great port of its day, Mocha, now synonymous with coffee.
Initially, the authorities in Yemen actively encouraged coffee drinking as it was considered preferable to the extreme side effects of Khat, a shrub whose buds and leaves were chewed as a stimulant. The first coffeehouses were opened in Mocha and were called 'kaveh kanes'. They quickly spread throughout the Arab world and became successful places where chess was played, gossip was exchanged, and singing, dancing and music were enjoyed. They were luxuriously decorated and each had an individual character. Nothing quite like the coffeehouse had existed before: a place where society and business could be conducted in comfortable surroundings and where anyone could go, for the price of coffee.
The Arabian coffeehouses soon became centers of political activity and were suppressed.
On pilgrimage to Mecca, through the seaport of Mocha, in the middle 1600s, a revered holy man from India named Baba Budan, discovered for him the wonders of coffee. In his zeal to share what he had found with his fellows at home, he smuggled seven coffee beans out of Arabia, wrapped around his belly. On his return home, he planted the beans in the hills of Mysore, India, and nurtured the young coffee bushes that resulted. Coffee flourished in the hills of India – Chikmagalgur hills now named after Baba Budan.
[edit] Entrance to Europe
Mocha was also the main port for the one sea route to Mecca to Europe, Coffee though traded with Europeans, the Arabs had a strict policy not to export any fertile beans, so that coffee could not be cultivated anywhere else. The coffee bean is the seed of the coffee tree, but when stripped of its outer layers it becomes infertile.
Coffee was first imported to Europe through the Italian city of Venice. The flourishing trade between Venetians and Arabs brought a large variety of commodities and goods, including coffee. Venetian merchants introduced coffee to the wealthy charging them heavily.
Although the Venetians considered it a sinful drink from the heathens (Arabs) its popularity grew nevertheless. It just so happened that Pope Clement VIII was facing the rising tide of Islamic power. He was advised that coffee, coming as it did from the East, was a threat to Christianity. The Pope wisely tried a pot first. Far from agreeing to conspiracy theories and "coffee plots," he blessed the drink and made it a Christian beverage.
[edit] Dutch coffee
The race to make off with some live coffee trees or beans was eventually won by the Dutch in 1616, who brought some back from Malabar to Holland where they were grown in greenhouses. The Dutch began growing coffee at their forts in Malabar, India, and in 1699 took some to Batavia in Java, in what is now Indonesia.
Within a few years the Dutch colonies (Java in Asia, Surinam in Americas) had become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe.
[edit] Austrian Coffee
Coffee came to Vienna in 1683, when the besieging Turkish army was routed and sacks of coffee discovered in its abandoned baggage.
- Further information: Siege of Vienna
[edit] Coffee in Britain
The first coffeehouse in England was opened by a Lebanese Jew. Women were not allowed in coffeehouses, and in London, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" complained:
“…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age”.[2]
[edit] Coffee in France
In 1715, Louis XIV of France learned of this coffee tree and the Dutch presented him with a coffee tree also referred as the Noble Tree. The first greenhouse in Europe was built to shelter the Noble Tree.[3] This coffee tree flourished and produced a substantial crop. The Noble Tree gave birth to billions of Arabica trees, which can still be found today growing in farout french colonies of Central and South America.
The French soon had a mass affinity for coffee. Coffee was so addictive that their popular french revolutionary slogans of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort!" ("Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death!")" against the Bourgeoisie began in cafes known to be the centre of cultural exchange in a particular community, often fomenting social and political change.
[edit] Coffee in the Americas
Chevalier Gabriel Mathiew de Clieu brought sprouts from the Noble Tree to Martinique( Haiti) in the Caribbean circa 1720. Those sprouts flourished and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees in Martinique enabling the spread of coffee cultivation in Haiti, Mexico and the islands of the Caribbean.
The Noble Tree also found its way to the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean known as the Isle of Bourbon. The plant produced smaller beans and was deemed a different variety of Arabica known as var. Bourbon. The infamous Santos coffee of Brazil and the Oaxaca coffee of Mexico are the progeny of that Bourbon tree. Circa 1727, the emperor of Brazil sent Francisco de Mello Palheta to French Guinea to obtain coffee seeds to become a part of the coffee market. Francisco initially had difficulty obtaining these seeds yet he captivated the French Governor's wife and she in turn, sent him enough seeds and shoots which would commence the coffee industry of Brazil. In 1893, the coffee from Brazil was introduced into Kenya and Tanzania (Tanganyika), not far from its place of origin in Ethiopia, 600 years prior, ending its transcontinental journey.
The introduction of coffee to the Americas attributed France through its colonization of many parts of the continent, starting with Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where the first French coffee plantations were founded. They relied heavily on African slave laborers.
Two years after the French Revolution, the slaves successfully revolted under Jean-Jacques Dessalines and created the first independent colony for the slaves.
[edit] Contemporary coffee conflicts
Many revolutionary upstarts began at cafes or coffeehouses. See for example the meetings of the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolution and the abortive Beer Hall Putsch by the German Nazi party in 1923. It was in coffeehouses that the Revolutionaries met, here they planned.
The Boston Tea Party was convened in a coffeeshop despite what the name suggests and gave the first public reading of the United States Declaration of Independence. Through meetings in coffeehouses the first Continental Congress was born.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.ico.org/coffee_story.asp
- ^ http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/wom-pet.htm
- ^ http://www.lucidcafe.com/fundamentals.html
- 1949 Encyclopedia Britannica. Otis, McAllister & Co. 1954
[edit] External links
| Coffee |
| Facts about coffee: History of coffee | Economics of coffee | Coffee and health |
| Species and varieties: List of varieties | Coffea arabica: Kenya AA, Kona, Jamaican Blue Mountain | Coffea canephora (robusta): Kopi Luwak |
| Major chemicals in coffee: Caffeine | Cafestol |
| Coffee bean processing: Coffee roasting | Home roasting coffee | Decaffeination |
| Common beverage preparation: Espresso (lungo, ristretto) | Drip brew (from coffeemakers) | French press | Turkish coffee | Instant coffee | Chemex | Moka Express |
| Popular coffee beverages: Americano/Long black | Café au lait/Café con leche | Cafe mocha | Ca phe sua da Cappuccino | Greek frappé coffee | Irish coffee | Latte/Flat white | Macchiato (espresso, latte) | Iced Coffee | Red eye |
| Coffee and lifestyle: Social aspects of coffee | Coffeehouse | Caffè | Café | Caffè sospeso
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