Brief Coffee History

Brief Coffee History [top]

It is estimated that coffee originated in an Ethiopian province called Kaffa. But, there is controversy about where it originated. Coffee first became trendy in Arabia during the 13th century. Coffee trees were grown in India sometime after 1600, and some around 1650 coffee was imported in to England and coffee houses opened in London and Oxford.
Coffee was popular by the 18th century in Europe and European colonists introduced the crop to other tropical countries to help them supply a healthy domestic demand. The demand for coffee was so strong in the 19th century that when authentic coffee beans were limited, people developed substitutes from vegetables like, chicory root, acorns and figs.

The history of coffee can be traced to at least as early as the 9th century, when it appeared in the highlands of Ethiopia. According to legend, shepherds were the first to observe the influence of the caffeine in coffee beans when, after their goats consumed some wild coffee berries in the pasture, the goats appeared to "dance" and have an increased level of energy. From Ethiopia, coffee spread to Egypt and Yemen, and by the fifteenth century had reached Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa.

In 1583, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, after returning from a ten-year trip to the Near East, gave this description of coffee:

“ A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water & the fruit from a bush called bunnu. ”

Coffee received a major boost in popularity during the rise of Islam, a religion  which outlawed alcohol but adopted coffee as an acceptable drink. It was even called qahwa which is the old Arab word for wine; from which the name "coffee" is thought to derive. Initially coffee was mainly drank by Arab Sufi monks, but by the fifteenth century it was being consumed by everybody throughout the Islamic world in ubiquitous coffee houses that were called kaveh kanes.

The Arabian monopoly on coffee was broken by a Muslim pilgrim from India named Baba Budan. Sometime around the year 1650, the legend has it that Baba smuggled seven coffee seeds strapped to his body out of Mecca. These special coffee seeds were then planted near the city of Chickmaglur in southern India... these Arabian coffee trees are parents of most coffee trees in the world today. This region of India today still produces quality coffee beans from the original ancient Arabian coffee seeds.

From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy. The thriving trade between Venice and the Muslims of North Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East brought many African goods, including coffee, to this port. Merchants introduced coffee to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for it, and introducing it to Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was deemed an acceptable Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink". he first European coffee house opened in Italy in the year 1645. The Dutch were the first to import coffee and coffee beans on a large scale, and they eventually smuggled coffee seedlings into Europe in 1690, defying the Arab prohibition on the exportation of coffee plants or unroasted coffee seeds. Through the efforts of the British East India Company, coffee became popular in England as well.  It was introduced in France in 1657, and in Austria and Poland following the 1683 Battle of Vienna, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks. When coffee reached the Thirteen Colonies, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe. However, during the Revolutionary War, the demand for coffee increased so much that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was partly due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants. After the War of 1812, during which Britain had temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans' taste for coffee grew, and high demand during the American Civil War together with advances in brewing technology secured the position of coffee as an everyday commodity in the United States. The major coffee-producing regions today are South America, Vietnam, Cote d'Ivore and Kenya. http://www.coffeefacts.com/