Coffee

Many of us drink coffee because we like the taste or “need” the stimulation of caffeine. However, as with anything that is woven into the cultural fabric of so many countries coffee has a history that contributes to its worldwide popularity today. So, sit back and discover “the rest of the story.” I’ll sip a cup while writing this article.

The Popularity of Coffee: An Historical Prospective

In 850 coffee was discovered by a goat herder in Ethiopia who notices his goats are friskier after eating strange red berries. But the internet was slower then and coffee wasn’t cultivated for another 250 years on the Arabian Peninsula. Because Arab Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol they made a beverage from plants called “qahwa.” It was here, at around the year 1100, that the beans were first roasted and boiled.

What wine was to the Europeans, coffee became to the Arabs. In 1475 the worlds first coffee shop opens in Constantinople. Two more follow 80 years later.

As trade routes were established from Arabia into Africa and Europe this new bean, and beverage, enters Europe through the port of Venice and by 1654 the first coffeehouses open in Italy. As the Europeans established trade routes around the world coffee was a main component of trade.

Coffee is introduced to the New World by Captain John Smith, who established Virginia. While the colonists enjoyed both tea and coffee with a preference for tea, British taxation of tea, and with the history that followed, caused coffee to become the hot beverage of choice for most Americans.

The Role of the Coffeehouse

Just as restaurants opened to satisfy the social need of people, in addition to the biological, coffeehouses allowed people soon to sit down together and enjoy coffee outside of their homes.

Soon, an association between coffee and with social interaction began to form. Arabs began to view coffee as a social drink, similar to our view in modern times. But Arabs also saw it as an intellectual drink calling it “the milk of thinkers and chess players.”

Something similar happened in England. Because a penny is charged for admission and a cup of coffee, coffeehouses are called “penny universities.” Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse opens in 1688 and eventually becomes Lloyd’s of London, the world’s best known insurance company. The word “TIPS” is coined in an English coffee house: A sign reading “To Insure Prompt Service” (TIPS) was place by a cup. Those desiring prompt service and better seating threw a coin into a tin.

Worldwide Cultivation

With its popularity growing it was inevitable that the cultivation could not be contained in Arabia. In 1690, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially. Coffee is smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha and transported to Ceylon and East Indies for cultivation.

At around 1723, plants are introduced in the Americas for cultivation. A French naval officer transports a seedling to Martinique and by 1777, 1.92 billion coffee plants are cultivated on the island. The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start in 1727 with seedlings smuggled out of Paris.

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

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Coffee is so popular these days that it ranks as one of the three top beverages that people drink. Different people have different tastes, which is the reason why coffee manufacturers have taken to blends and coffee flavors to meet the demands and tastes of different people. The different kinds of coffee and coffee blends are sometimes called gourmet coffee.

The Beginning Of Coffee

The discovery of coffee was sometime in the 9th century, in Ethiopia, when a shepherd notice his goats cavorting around with fresh energy after having dined on some red berries on a high bush. It was told that the shepherd took home some of the berries and roasted them to be able to eat the seeds. This was how coffee was discovered. Soon, coffee reached the Turks and they started to pound the coffee beans and mix them in water.

As the beverage traveled to Europe, many people liked the strong taste and energy, which came with it. Many coffeehouses sprouted in Europe and people started experimenting on different roasting processes and different ways to prepare coffee.

Specialty Coffee

Nowadays, many companies and stores sell their coffee products with variations. Coffee is not anymore the simple black with sugar and cream but it has many different flavors. Some people still prefer their coffee straight black with just sugar but some of the younger generation like the newer gourmet coffee.

Gourmet coffee or specialty coffee is coffee made from exceptional beans and grown in very specific climates and soil. These kinds of coffee have very distinct flavors, which are sometimes adapted from the soils they grow on. Even the care that is given to the plant and the ways it will be harvested or process may be factors to the coffee being gourmet coffee plant.

Freshness is also an essential part to gourmet coffee being called gourmet coffee. If the beans that are used are processed while they are fresh, these give out a definite aroma. Truly fresh coffee is ground right before brewing and brewed within a week of roasting. Being aromatic is a big part to coffee being called a specialty coffee. It is usually the highest quality green beans roasted by expert roasters.

Specialty coffee does not refer to the way that coffee is brewed but instead refers to the quality of the beans used to make the coffee grounds and the process by which the grounds are processed. True gourmet coffee does not need additives to enhance their flavor. When flavor is added to coffee it becomes flavored coffee, not specialty coffee.

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Author: John Hilaire
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The following paragraphs summarize the work of the history of coffee experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of coffee history.

Of the drinks available to people today, few are as famous as coffee. Perhaps the best source of caffeine short of the new energy drinks being developed, coffee is popular in a variety of places, from the home to the office, from small coffeehouses to swanky restaurants.

The history of coffee can only be tracked a little more than a thousand years, a relatively short period of time compared to alcoholic beverages, which have been consumed since prehistory, and tea, which goes back to over a thousand years BC. Despite this, coffee has spread throughout the world as a popular beverage. A look at the history of coffee will help to show how it became so widespread.

African Origins

The history of coffee begins sometime around the 9th century, with its origins in Ethiopia as a beverage. The legend of coffee is that Ethiopian herders noticed that their goats were especially perky after eating the berries of a particular bush, and thus got the idea to consume it as a stimulant. The reality is that coffee probably had already been developed as a drink by the 9th century as a natural result of cultivation of plants. From Ethiopia, the drink spread to North Africa, including Egypt.

Middle Eastern Success

The introduction of coffee to Egypt make it accessible to ports with trade to the rest of the Middle East, where coffee became a popular drink by the 1500s. Shortly after its introduction, Muslim authorities placed a ban on the drink due to its stimulant properties. But much like prohibition in the United States, the ban on coffee didn’t last and was later rescinded. At this point in history, though, tight controls on such a commodity were in place. Though coffee in its roasted form began to be exported to Italy and other European Nations, unroasted seeds and plants were forbidden to be exported.

Colonization and Coffee

This tight control over the export of coffee plants didn’t last. This period of the history of coffee ended when Dutch traders smuggled coffee seeds out of the Middle East in the 1600s, where it was planted on the island of Java, which is still a major exporter of coffee today and also shares its name with a nickname for the drink. Interestingly enough, as coffee plants spread to other European colonies, another century into the history of coffee, in the 1700s, the plant was smuggled to Brazil, which is still the largest exporter of the drink.

Coffee in America

The history of coffee in the United States follows that of early wars. Introduced there in the 1700s, coffee’s popularity didn’t take off until the Revolutionary War, when tea was scarce and colonists turned to other drinks. The drink again gained in popularity during the war of 1812 for similar reasons.

But the time when the history of coffee developed to where it was an American fixture seems to be during the Civil War, when demand was high enough that it became cemented as a beverage in many American households. Through colonization and wars, the history of coffee seems to follow that of the history of people, and its widespread popularity throughout the world shows that it is truly an international sensation.

Hopefully the sections above have contributed to your understanding of the history of coffee. Share your new understanding about the exciting history of coffee with others. They’ll thank you for it.

Roland Jefferson is an online researcher based out of Los Angeles, CA. He’s committed to bringing the online community the information it needs most. For up to date information and much more for coffee enthusiast, please visit: [http://www.coffeehangout.info]

Author: Roland Jefferson
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For many connoisseurs, the period from the mid-19th Century to the late 20th Century is the ‘Dark Age’ of coffee. During this era, coffee lost its Middle-Eastern mystical charm and became commercialised and, quite frankly, ordinary.

When coffee was first introduced into Britain during the 17th Century, it was a drink enjoyed by every social class. While the rich would enjoy coffee almost ceremonially in their social clubs, the poor saw coffee as an essential nutrient, a hot drink to replace a hot meal, or hunger suppressant. It was only a matter of time, with the advancement of technology, that large companies would form to take advantage of the coffee commodity.

Traditionally coffee was roasted in the home or in the coffeehouse. A practice imported from the Middle-East was to simply stir-fry green beans in an iron pan over a fire till brown. Some coffeehouses used a more sophisticated method of a cylindrical unit hung above a fire with a handle to rotate the beans inside. Both these methods were only capable of roasting small batches of coffee, a couple of kilos or several pounds at most, which ensured that the coffee was always fresh.

However, with the onset of the industrial revolution and mechanisation, coffee roasting technology soon improved. Commercial coffee roasters were being invented which were capable of roasting much larger batches of coffee. It was now possible for the few to meet the coffee needs of the masses.

It was in the United States where coffee initially started to be commercialised. In 1865, John Arbuckle marketed the first commercially available packages of ground, roasted coffee. His brand, ‘Ariosa’, was sold over a far larger area then any other coffee roaster. Instead of being confined to a small area close to his roasting factory, Arbuckle was able to establish his coffee as a regional brand. Others soon followed suit and, by World War I, there were a number of regional roasters including companies such as Folgers, Hill Brothers, and Maxwell House. These companies offered customers consistent quality and convenient packaging for use in the home, but at a price: freshness. It could be several weeks, or even months, before the end product would reach the customer.

One approach to prolonging the freshness of roasted coffee was to glaze it with a glutinous or gelatinous matter. After the coffee beans had been roasted, a glaze would be poured over them, which would form a hard, protective barrier around the bean. Once such glaze patented by John Arbuckle in 1868, consisted of using: a quart of water, one ounce of Irish moss, half an ounce of isinglass, half an ounce of gelatine, one ounce of white sugar, and twenty-four eggs, per hundred pounds of coffee. Arbuckle experimented with many different glazes over the years, eventually settling on a sugar based glaze. In fact, Arbuckle became such a prolific user of sugar that he entered into the sugar business rather then give a profit to others for the huge quantities he required.

So why were customers willing to buy this coffee? Once ground, coffee quickly loses its flavour and therefore should be consumed as soon as possible (at the very latest within 48 hours). But this was the age of the brand, where consistency ruled king over quality. Local roasters would often produce excellent coffee, but they could also produce foul coffee, occasionally containing a number of adulterations. Customers wanted to trust what they were buying. They wanted their coffee to taste exactly the same, time and time again.

The first coffee brand to come to Britain was Kenco. In 1923, a co-operative of Kenyan Coffee farmers set up a coffee shop in Sloan Square (London), called the Kenyan Coffee Company, to distribute high quality coffee beans around Britain. Their shop proved very popular and their brand of coffee (renamed Kenco in 1962) soon spread throughout the UK.

Worse was to come to the brew known as coffee. As regional roasters grew into national roasters and then into international roasters, their pursuit of profit intensified. Traditionally coffee came from the ‘arabica’ variety of coffee bush. But in the 1850s, the French and Portuguese began to cultivate a different variety of coffee bush, known as ‘robusta’, on the west coast of Africa between Gabon and Angola. Robusta beans were (and still are) cheaper then arabica beans as they are easier to grow and have an inferior flavour. Coffee roasters looking to minimise their production costs started blending robusta beans with arabica beans in increasing quantities. They also used shorter roast times, to reduce weight loss stopping the coffee from fully developing its complex flavour.

However the lowest point for coffee comes with the introduction of instant coffee – a drink bearing little resemblance in taste to actual coffee. Although the first commercially produced instant coffee, called ‘Red E Coffee’, invented by George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, was marketed in 1909, it is Nestlé who are generally attributed with the invention of instant coffee. In 1930, Nestlé were approached by the Instituto do Café (Brazilian Coffee Institute) to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses. They believed that a new coffee product that was soluble in hot water, yet retained its flavour, would help stimulate World coffee sales. After seven years of research and frequent tasting, scientist Max Mortgenthaler finally achieved the desired results and, on 1st April 1938, Nescafé was launched, first in Switzerland and then later in Britain.

Some claim that it was the introduction of commercial television in 1956 that acted as a catalyst to the success of instant coffee in Britain. The commercial breaks were too short a time in which to brew a cup of tea, but time enough for an instant coffee. There is probably some truth to this claim as, by the 1960s, the majority of the tea industry started producing tea bags, an invention by Thomas Sullivan over half a century earlier (1904). Tea bags were seen as more convenient, simpler and quicker to use then traditional loose leaf tea and so could compete against instant coffee.

The coffee industry soon realised the association between commercial breaks and coffee drinking and started investing heavily in television advertising. Probably the most famous series of coffee advertisements were made for Nescafé Gold Blend. First aired in 1987, these advertisements focused on the sexual chemistry between a couple, played by Anthony Head and Sharon Maughan, acted out in a mini soap opera. The advertisements gripped the whole nation, featuring as frequently as Eastenders or Coronation Street as topics of conversation. This original series of advertisements ran for ten years, increasing sales of Gold Blend by 40% in the first five years (there were two further, less successful, sets of advertisements with different actors). Such was the profile of these advertisements, that they even featured as a news article on the ‘News at Ten’.

With the coffee industry focused on price rather then quality, it was little wonder that coffee sales became stagnant. Coffee drinking was now more about a caffeine fix rather then about savouring the taste, to be drunk in a break from work, rather then to be enjoyed over conversation or while reading the newspaper. Unsurprisingly the younger generations born in the 70s and 80s turned their back on bitter coffee, preferring sugary soft drinks such as Coca Cola and Pepsi for their caffeine kicks.

James Grierson is the owner of Galla Coffee: http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk – Uk online retailer of designer coffee accessories. Through the Coffee Knowledge section of his website he aims to help people understand more about coffee and give them tips on how to make great tasting coffee in their home.

Check out http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk/acatalog/Coffee_Knowledge.html for more articles or if you have a question send it to: coffeeknowledge@gallacoffee.co.uk

Author: James Grierson
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