Trip Around the World – a History of Coffee

Beer is probably the oldest man-made brew, with wine a distant second. Beer recipes are at least as old as 6000 BC, but the oldest winemaking processes date ‘only’ from about the turn of the first millennium.

Their younger cousin, coffee, arose a couple of hundred years later, though it’s not known how old the plant itself is. Some archaeological evidence shows that humans were eating the berries as long as a hundred thousand years ago.

The word ‘coffee’ has come a long way to become a part of English language. It entered there in 1598 via Italian word caffé, which in return is derived from Turkish kahve that came into being via Arabic qahwa, a truncation of qahhwat al-bun meaning wine of the bean.

One legend says that a goat herder Kaldi in Ethiopia observed his charges eating the red berries from a nearby tree and became excited. Trying them himself, he too felt a great lift. Similar myth says that Yemenite Sufi mystic Shaikh ash-Shadhili, while traveling Ethiopia, observed unusual vitality of goats and experienced the same after eating the berries that goats had been eating.

One of the possible origins for both the beverage and the name is the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, where the plant itself came from (they call it bunn or bunna).

At first coffee was mostly grown in Ethiopia where it was cultivated by highlanders.

By 600 AD that magical berry, and the brew made from drying and grinding its seeds, had found its way to what is now known as Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. The first coffee house was opened in 1471 in Istanbul and was called Kiva Han. The first European coffee house was opened in Italy in 1645.

Stories tell of a native of India smuggling the precious seeds of the tree out of Arabia around 1650 AD, then planting them in the hills of Chikmagalur. Arabian law forbad the exporting of beans that could germinate, effectively controlling coffee trade for centuries. Whether myth or history, the fruit of those seeds now forms a third of India’s large coffee output.

Europeans – the British, Dutch, French, and others – spread the beans to other countries during their travels. The Dutch were responsible for its introduction to Java in the 18th century. From those plantings, history tells us, came the famed tree coveted by France’s king, presented to him as a gift.

Louis XIV of France, finding the tree didn’t tolerate frost well, had a greenhouse erected to supply him with the beans to make the brew he so savored. It is said that from that source came the cultivars used in Central and South America.

Reaching Martinique around 1720, sprouts were planted and grew well in the hot Caribbean clime. From the thousands of trees that resulted, some were transported to Mexico where the product now forms one of their largest exports.

Making its way to French Guiana around the same time, the tree grew well in that steamy atmosphere. Seeing an opportunity, a rascal named Francisco de Melo Palheta solicited the aid of the governor’s wife to smuggle seeds out of the country. As he prepared to part for Brazil, the lady handed him a bouquet of flowers containing the illicit beans. It was in the year of 1727.

Brazil was the biggest coffee producer in the world for many decades in 19th and 29th century. Today it still remains as one of the largest coffee producers on the planet.

From Brazil the seeds complete the circle, making their way in the late 19th century to Kenya and Tanzania, not far from their original home in Ethiopia. Six centuries to return home is a long journey and an excellent excuse to rest and have a cup.

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