The History of Coffee
Circa AD 800
Legend has it that coffee was discovered by a young Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi who noticed his goats behaving frenetically after eating red berries from a nearby bush. Curious and hoping to energize himself, Kaldi tried some of the berries. To his delight, his tiredness quickly faded into a fresh burst of energy and he began dancing about excitedly with his goats. The daily habit that Kaldi soon developed was noticed by a monk from a local monastery. The monk tried the fruits and noticing the effect, came upon the idea of boiling the berries to make a drink to help the monks stay awake during long religious services. News of the berry drink spread rapidly throughout all the monasteries in the kingdom; more zealous monks drank it to spend a longer time praying.
History tells us that Africans of the same era fueled up on protein-rich coffee and animal fat balls (primitive power bars) and unwound with wine make from coffee berry pulp. Coffee later crossed the Red Sea to Arabia where things really got cooking.
Circa 1000 to 1600
Coffee was first brewed in Arabia around AD 1000. Arabia made export beans infertile by poaching or boiling and it is said that no coffee seed sprouted outside of Africa or Arabia until the 1600’s ----until Baba Budano. This Indian pilgrim smuggled fertile seeds strapped to his belly when he left Mecca. Baba’s beans bore fruit and initiated an agricultural expansion that would soon reach Europe’s colonies.
Circa 1615 – 1700
A merchant of Venice brought the plant from Turkey to Italy, thereby introducing coffee to the Europeans. By 1696, the Dutch founded the first European owned coffee estate on colonial Java, now a part of Indonesia. Throwing caution to the wind, Amsterdam began bestowing coffee trees on Aristocrats around Europe.
Circa 1714 to 1720
Louis XIV received his Dutch treat around 1714 – a coffee tree for Paris’s Royal Botanical Garden. Several years later a young naval officer, on leave from Martinique, stole a sprout to take back with him.
Circa 1720 to 1770
On the return passage to Martinique, a jealous passenger tried to take the coffee plant and tore off a branch. Then came the pirates who nearly captured the ship followed by a storm that nearly sank it. Water grew scarce and the young officer had to share half his water rations with the plant. Under an armed guard, the sprout grew strong in Martinique, yielding an extended family of approximately 18 million trees in 50 years or so.
Circa 1727 to 1800
By 1727, Brazil’s government wanted a cut of the coffee market but first they need an agent to smuggle seeds from a coffee country. They dispatch an officer, Francisco de Melo Palheta, the James Bond of coffee beans. Col. Palheta is sent to French Guiana supposedly to mediate a border dispute. Eschewing the fortress-like coffee farms, the suave Palheta chooses a path of least resistance – the governor’s wife. At a state farewell dinner, she presented Palheta a sly token of affection – a bouquet spiked with seedlings. From these scant shoots sprouted the world’s greatest coffee empire. By 1800, Brazil’s monster harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to an everyday elixir, a drink for all the people!
