This morning, as usual, one of the first things I did was make coffee. And every morning, just like most of you, I imagine, the first question of the day in my mind is — where did my morning coffee come from?
Well, ok, maybe that’s not the first question in your mind, but I’m going to tell you anyway.
The story starts a long, long time ago, in a land where there were no Starbucks… and stories about the origins of coffee became legends….
According to an ancient Ethiopian legend, a goat herder named Kaldi discovered coffee while in the pasture with his goats. When he saw that his goats were acting frisky after eating berries from a certain tree, he decided to experiment on himself. Kale liked the effect so much that he told the local monastery about it. The abbot who ran the place thought the “magic berries” were a work of the devil and threw them into the fire. The burning beans produced such a good smelling aroma that the monks rescued them from the flames. The monks began to use the beans in religious ceremonies and for medicinal purposes.
The earliest written record of coffee was about A.D. 900 by anArab physician-philosopher named Rhazes. Rhazes thought that coffee (which he called “bunchum”) contained a substance that could cure disease. But you didn’t drink it — the berries were dried, crushed, and mixed with fat to form a ball that was eaten.
An Arabian legend is very much like the Ethiopian, except, of course, in this version of the story Kaldi is an Arab instead of an African. It contains the same frisky berry eating goats, and Kaldi trying some, too. But in this story, a tired and hungry learned man named Aucuba just happened to be passing by and saw Kaldi and his goats jumping around. Since he was hungry, he ate the berries and — miraculously — wasn’t tired any more. Aucuba was so impressed that he took some of the berries, sold them, and became a rich man. No one knows what happened to poor Kaldi — apparently he didn’t have any of that entrepreneurial spirit.
So, it turns out that coffee was originally used by the general public as medicine (some might say it still is.) Only religious Muslims used the bean in a beverage. But by the 13th century, Arabian coffee houses (called “qahveh khanchs”) served it as a drink to anyone who had the money to pay for it. A lot of Muslims were so upset at the public use of this “holy beverage” that they threatened death to anyone who frequented these dens of sin. But we all know what it’s like when you gotta have that cuppa java — the threat didn’t keep the café crowd away. And those coffee fans must have “spilled the beans,” because the word about coffee started to spread.
European travelers brought back the news of an unusual black beverage called “qahveh” (coffee.) By 1615 Italy was importing it. Its debut caused a commotion among the Italian clergy who thought it was the “bitter invention of Satan.” Pope Clement VIII, however, eventually gave his papal approval. Over the next 80 years, coffee drinking and coffeehouses spread from Italy to other parts of Europe. In 1690 the Dutch managed to smuggle a few plants to the Netherlands where the first European coffee cultivation began. That ended the Arabian monopoly on the coffee trade.
In 1723 a sneaky guy named Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu stole a coffee plant from the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden in Paris, with the intention of bringing coffee to America. According to historic records, on the voyage, he encountered violent storms, pirate attacks, and a severe water shortage on board. It’s considered some kind of a miracle that both he and his plant survived the voyage. It was from this one plant that the growth of coffee spread through the New World.
Coffee finally made its way to Brazil in 1727. Francisco de Melo Palheta, a Brazilian army lieutenant, was sent by his country to arbitrate a boundary dispute between French and Dutch Guiana. Both countries were cultivating coffee, but they weren’t allowing the export of seeds or seedlings. Palheta wanted his country to be part of the lucrative coffee trade, so he endeared himself to the wife of the governor of French Guiana. She was so impressed with how he handled the arbitration that on his departure she presented him with a bouquet. Hidden in the bouquet were coffee seeds and cuttings. Palheta brought them to Brazil, where they flourished, beginning the now well-known Brazilian coffee industry.
So now you don’t have to do all that wondering about coffee — in the morning, you’ll have time to just stop and smell the coffee. And may your coffee kick in before reality does……
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