Coffee

The history of coffee dates back more than a thousand years and is as rich as the brew itself. It is believed that coffee plants originated on the shores of the Red Sea, in the Horn of Africa. Initially, coffee beans were eaten as a food, not drunk as a hot beverage. Tribes located in East African would grind the coffee cherries (the fruit containing the pulp and seed – what we now call the coffee bean) and mix the ground pulp with animal fat making a paste. This paste was eaten by tribal warriors to gain energy for battle. Ethiopians, around the year 1000 A.D., created a coffee wine by fermenting the bean in water. Coffee was also native to the Arabian Peninsula where, in the eleventh century, it was first taken as a hot drink.

Like wine during the first century, coffee developed a mystical, religious reputation. Many believed that the stimulating properties of coffee gave a religious ecstasy to those who consumed it. This drink became shrouded in secrecy and associated with the educated people of the times usually priests and physicians. Out of this environment two stories developed to explain the origin of this gift to man.

The most common history of coffee told relates a goat herder, named Kaldi, became frisky after eating the red cherries of a wild plant. After eating the fruit he was excited to feel the effects of caffeine, of course not knowing what that was. Later, it is told, he was spotted by some monks passing by dancing with his herd. After some experimentation, the monks created a drink by boiling the coffee bean. This beverage was consumed just before all-night ceremonies to keep the monks awake.

The second story that is popular involves a Muslim dervish who was sentenced to death by his enemies. He was forced to wander in the desert to die of starvation. During this time he heard a voice telling him to eat the fruit of what was a nearby wild coffee shrub. In his delirium he tried to soften the beans in water. When this failed he simply drank the soak water out of thirst. He was immediately invigorated and believed this to be a sign from God, returning to his homeland to share his discovery.

It was during the fifteenth century that coffee was first cultivated and the Arabian province of Yemen was the most prominent source of coffee. As demand grew past the boundaries of the Near East, the exportation of coffee went through the Yemeni port of Mocha, destined for Alexandria and Constantinople. This trade was lucrative and cloaked in secrecy. It was so closely guarded that no live plants were allowed to leave the country. The restrictions proved to be no match for those Muslim pilgrims who smuggled coffee plants back home after their trips to Mecca. Soon cultivation grew in India.

As trade routes flourished, coffee began to pass through the port of Venice where shipping fleets along the Spice Route brought Arabian merchants with tea, cinnamon, and other luxuries, including coffee. Liquid consumption became the most popular method with street vendors offering the hot beverages next to their cold ones, like lemonade. As Europeans traveled and experienced coffee in Arabia they also began to return home with this new and exotic drink.

The Dutch started the first plantation-styled coffee cultivation, during the seventeenth century, in their colonies in Indonesia primarily on the islands of Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Bali. The French, taking a cutting from a coffee tree to Martinique, introducing the plant to the Caribbean and Latin America. Brazil became the worlds largest producer of coffee after a rare plant disease killed the coffee plants in Southeast Asia in the mid-nineteenth century.

It is interesting that today coffee is the second most traded commodity behind oil, and many of the nicknames we have for this drink, e.g. Java and Mocha come from locations that have played a prominent role in the history of our favorite beverage.

Lance Curtis is editor and contributor to TheCoffeeDrinker.com where coffee lovers gather with a cup of their favorite brew.

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Author: J. Lance Curtis
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Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world. The word coffee is believed to have been deduced from Kaffa, a place situated in Ethiopia, Africa, It came into existence around 800 A.D. and there are many legends and stories associated with discovery.

One such interesting story goes like this. One day a monk saw a goatherd imitating his sheep who were dancing from one shrub to another, grazing the cherry-red berries containing coffee beans. The monk was amazed at the goatherd’s caper on eating the beans. The monk took some of the berries for his fellow monks and that night they realized that they seemed to attain something that they felt was ‘divine stimulation’.

Other than the legends and stories there is also historical evidence about how the Africans of the same era used the coffee plant in different ways. Africans used what can be called primitive ‘Power Bars’ made of coffee and animal fat as a stimulant. They also made wine from the coffee-berry pulp. From Africa, coffee moved out towards Arabia via the Red Sea and then slowly made its way to the rest of the world.

Coffee, as we know it today came into existence around 1000 A.D. and this is when it was first roasted and brewed. By the 13th Century, coffee became popular with the Muslim holy men who found it a very convenient drink it to keep worshippers awake and send them in a tizzy. Then onwards, coffee traveled with the Muslims. Wherever Islam went, coffee traveled along. However, Arabians were cautious and did not want to share the plant with the world. They made sure that no coffee bean sprouted outside Arabia and coffee beans were boiled or parched to make them infertile before taking out of Arabia.

An enterprising Indian pilgrim cum smuggler, Baba Budan, strapped some fertile coffee beans to his stomach and left Mecca. These beans were ultimately responsible for the agricultural expansion of coffee, which later reached Europe’s colonies in the East.

From these colonies, coffee was traded by a Venice merchant who took it to Europe. The Europeans liked it so much that they wanted a constant supply of the beans. And later, it was the Dutch who set up the first European-owned coffee plantation in colonial Java in 1616. The Dutch were, however, not as cautious as the Arabians and they gifted coffee trees to the aristocracy all over Europe. Louis XIV was presented one such coffee tree in 1714, for his garden in Paris.

The coffee tree finally crossed the Atlantic with Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, a retired French naval officer. He smuggled a sprout with him to Martinique, a French Colony in the Caribbean after he was denied a clipping of the tree. Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu guarded the plant religiously. When the ship got caught in a storm de Clieu nurtured the pant with half of the water that he was rationed. Ultimately, the sprout flourished in Martinique and in the next 50 years more than 18 million coffee trees were grown there.

By 1727, Brazil had realized the potential of the plant and wanted a share in the coffee pie. Unable to get the plant through fair means, they dispatched Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta, allegedly to mediate in a border dispute, to French Guiana. Avoiding the heavily guarded coffee plantations, he chose to take the easy route of befriending the governor’s wife who slyly presented him a bouquet spiked with coffee seedlings on his farewell dinner. Coffee had now entered Brazil, a land of extremely fertile farms.

From 800 A.D. in Africa to 1727 in Brazil, the coffee plant had traveled through Middle East, South East and Europe and then to South America. Production of coffee reached dizzying heights due to the enormous harvests of Brazil’s fertile lands. This boom in production, apart from anything else, was instrumental in turning coffee, an elitist drink till then, into a drink of the masses.

Initially considered as a poor substitute for alcohol by the American colonists, its popularity grew when tea from Britain became scarce during the Revolutionary War. During and after the American Civil War, coffee had gained a premier position and was being increasingly accepted. Later, advancement in brewing technology ultimately secured its place as an everyday beverage of America.

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Everyday millions of people around the world begin their day religiously with a morning cup of coffee. Though today we easily identify coffee in its beverage form, it wasn’t always this way in the beginning. Throughout history, coffee has taken on several physical transformations, initially serving as an energy source when nomadic tribes combined coffee berries with animal fat as an early form of an energy bar. Later it was consumed as a tea, then a wine, and finally to the beverage we’ve come to identify today. Since the beginning, coffee has always been a product of great mystery, having been discovered accidentally in wild forests of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and consumed in its native cherry form, then later, passed through fire to significantly alter its chemical state. And although coffee has been in existence for thousands of years, its only been in the past half century or so, that scientists have been able to truly identify and understand what exactly is contained in this mystical bean. To date scientist have identified over 1,000 compounds in coffee, which when compared to products such as wine of chocolate that are composed of a few hundred, pale in comparison to that of coffee. Luckily through advancements in technology, much of coffee’s chemical make-up has been unlocked and we now have a better perspective on the chemistry contained within this mystical bean.

Caffeine

For many, coffee drinking is simply a delivery medium for a potent alkaloid we have come to identify as caffeine or technically as 1,3,7 – trimethylxanthine. Although caffeine is strongly associated with coffee, its production within the plant kingdom is not exclusive but is seen throughout several other forms of plant life. Mate, for example, which is traditionally consumed in parts of Uruguay and Argentina, contains less than one percent by weight. Whereas, tea leafs (Camellia sinesis) which originated in China, contain almost three times the concentration of caffeine than Arabica, with Brazilian mate almost twice that of robusta coffee. Turns out that Mother Nature was quite generous when it came to distributing caffeine amongst the plant kingdom. But for humans, caffeine is very unique. Thus far we are the only living forms on Earth that readily seek caffeine for both its stimulatory and psychological effects. For all other life forms, caffeine is a potent toxin capable of sterilization, phytotoxicity and antifungal properties. As such scientists believe that caffeine, with its intensely bitter taste, has evolved as a primitive defense mechanism in coffee ensuring its survival in the wild for thousands of years. It’s no suprise then, that the caffeine content of the more “robust” Robusta species is almost double that of the more delicate Arabica. The belief is that as insects attack the coffee cherry, they are deterred by the bitter taste of caffeine and simply move on to the next crop. Since Arabica is typically grown at higher altitudes than Robusta, where the attack of insects is reduced, Arabica has evolved to produce less caffeine.

Lipids

Lipid production and its subsequent survival after the roasting process play an important role to overall coffee quality. In general, most of the lipids exist in the form of a coffee oil and are located within the endosperm (bean) of the cherry, with only a small percentage deposited onto the outer portion of the coffee wax. Coincidentally, scientists have analyzed and discovered that much of the chemical make-up of coffee oil is very similar to that of vegetable cooking oils. As such, much of the lipid content in coffee remain unchanged and relatively stable even at the elevated temperatures associated with roasting. In its green form both Arabica and Robusta coffee contain on average 15-17% and 10-11.5%, respectively. But because Arabica contains about 60% more lipids than Robusta, many believe this stark difference is one reason responsible for quality difference between both species. Thus far, the claim has remained unconfirmed, until French scientists recently discovered a direct correlation between lipid content and overall cup quality. It turns out that as lipid content increases within the bean, so does overall cup quality. It’s a very plausible explanation when one considers that the majority of important flavor compounds in coffee are also fat soluble.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates make up roughly fifty percent of coffee’s total dry weight by composition. After roasting, remaining carbohydrates in the cup contribute to  mouth-feel or body, with some studies suggesting they are also responsible for the quality of the foam common in espresso beverages. Although there are numerous types of carbohydrates in coffee, perhaps the most important is that of sucrose. Sucrose, or more commonly known as table sugar, make up 6-9% in Arabica with a slightly less (3-7%) amount contained in Robusta coffee. During roasting, sucrose is readily decomposed and studies have shown that up to 97% of the initial sucrose content is lost even at light roasts. Its role during roasting is enormous with a large portion of the available carbohydrates participating in the Maillard and numerous others secondary reactions. One class of important byproducts created during roasting are those of organic acids. In its native green form, coffee contains negligible amounts of formic, acetic and latic acid. Though once roasted, there is a exponential increase in aliphatic acid production, along with a paralleled increase in coffee acidity. Since acidity plays an important role in assessing quality, it’s no surprise why see typically see higher levels of perceived acidity in Arabica coffee than Robusta, due in part, to its higher sucrose concentration. Coincidentally, in the past year Brazilian scientists have identified a single gene, sucrose synthase, which controls sucrose production in plants and may hold the key for cultivating higher quality coffee for years to come.

Proteins

Protein content for both green Arabica and Robusta coffee vary between 10-13% and exists as free or bound proteins within the coffee matrix. Although actual concentrations can vary, there are a number of factors that can affect free protein content, including improper storage which may increase free proteins levels and lead to detrimental effects on quality. During roasting, proteins combine with carbohydrates in what is perhaps the most important reaction for all thermally processed foods – the Maillard Reaction. These set of reactions, discovered by a French chemist in 1910, is what is largely responsible for transforming the mere handful of compounds found in green coffee to the complex matrix that coffee is today. As temperatures reach 150C (302F), the Maillard reaction propel free proteins in coffee to combine with reducing sugars, ultimately leading to the formation  hundreds of important aromatic compounds. Of these, pyrazines and pyridines have the greatest aromatic contribution and are responsible for the distinct maize/nutty aromas found in coffee. The reaction also leads to the formation of brown-colored polymetric melanoidins - the compounds responsible for coffee’s color.

Coincidentally, this is the same set of reaction that give rise to the alluring aromas we generate when toasting a loaf of bread or grilling a piece of steak. Although many of the byproducts created during the Maillard reaction are beneficial to coffee, in other agricultural products, these set of browning reactions can be a serious detriment to quality. In the cup, proteins also play a role in taste by forming secondary compounds during the roasting process. It turns out that the majority of coffee’s “bitterness” is not due solely to caffeine, but rather bitter compounds produced during the Maillard reaction. Caffeine, as intensely bitter as it is, accounts for only 10-20% of coffee’s total bitterness.

Joseph A. Rivera, is founder and creator – http://www.coffeechemistry.com – the largest coffee technical information portal for the specialty coffee industry. He is a frequent contributor and presenter for numerous trade publications and international conferences. He can be reached at jrivera@coffeechemistry.com

Author: Joseph Rivera
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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