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.

The Coffee Drinker uncovers those hard-to-find gourmet tidbits that coffee lovers, like you, enjoy.

Click the link to discover a world dedicated to you, The Coffee Drinker!

[http://thecoffeedrinker.com/coffees-popularity/]

Author: J. Lance Curtis
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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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.

The Coffee Drinker uncovers those hard-to-find gourmet tidbits that coffee lovers, like you, enjoy.

Click the link to discover a world dedicated to you, The Coffee Drinker!
http://thecoffeedrinker.com/the-rich-history-of-coffee/

Author: J. Lance Curtis
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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