Africa365.com/Business/featured article
A history of Coffee
Heather Maxwell
'Ah how sweet coffee tastes ! lovelier than a thousand
kisses , sweeter far than muskatel wine ! I must have coffee...'
Johann Sebastian Bach ,1732
Coffee Cantata.
Revolutions,fortunes and philosophies have all been discussed over endless cups of coffee in the dark smoky rooms of
a coffeehouse.Coffee is an integral part of the lives of millions of people around the globe:a source of income, wellcome break from work, a start to the day.Mochas,lattes,cappuccinos and espressos confront us on every street corner,yet few of us realise the distance the coffee bean has travelled,over the centuries, to reach our cups......
so exacly where did this heavenly bean originate, and when did it begin to weave
its way into our lives?popualar legend tells us that the coffee beans were discovered as
early as the 6th century in southern Ethiopia.One afternoon, a young shephered noticed
his goats bahaving strangly after eating the berries from a wild bush;
old and young goats alike were jumping crazily about the mountain side.
The shephered decided to try the mistirious berries, and found that he had renewed anergy after eating them.
He told his friends and soon,the shephereds were spending their evenings by the fire,
sucking on the thin nectar that sarounds the bean,then eating it.
News of the berries' invigorating qualities spread to nearby Orthodox monastries, and monks
began collecting the berries, crushing them into a pulp and mixing them with hot water in order to make the world's
first cup of coffee.This crude drink helped the monks stay awake during their evening prayers.
and its popularity spread throughout the country.
soon,coffee beans were used for a variety of purposes.They were given to the ill to restore their energy,
sweet pulps around the bean was crushed fermented and used to make wine,
the berries were crushed and mixed with animal fat to take on long journeys as a source of enregy.
Arabian wine and whirling dervishes
The ethiopians enjoyed the therapeutic effects of coffee for centuries before the bean traveled with arab merchants to Yemen.
some time, prior to the 10th century.Here, coffee did not make an impact until the late 14th century when,quite suddenly,coffee was being cultivated
in southern Yemen, and the bean was being roasted,crushed into a powder and mixed with hot water to make an invigorating drink;the predecesor of today's coffee.
So what led to this sudden rise to the popluarity of an otherwies obscure berry?Like the Othordox monks in Ethiopia,islamic holy men found that
cofee helped them stay awake and alert for prayers.In particular,the wirling devishes,a Sufi sect of islam that devote most of their time to intense prayer and dancing to
reach a higher spiritual state,found that cofee helped them to say alert and awake for prolonged prayers,
dances and rituals.The devishes are credited with introduing coffee to the cities of Medina and Mecca, the point from which cofee dispersed to the rest of the islamic world.
In particular,Mecca became the springboard for the quick movement of coffee.Every year,pilgrims from all over the islamic world converged on mecca-as they continue to do so
today -for the anual pilgrimage of Hajj.
In Mecca Pilgrims were introduced to the new drink of islam, and when they returned home,coffee returned with them.
'Qahwa' an ancient arabic term for wine,was the new craze of the islamic world,and wherever islam went,coffee followed.
By the 16th century, coffee houses had sprung up in all the major cities of the east:Cairo,Baghdad,Damascus,Medina and Istanbul.
Whereas coffee had not been a concern for the authorities,the cofee house was another matter.Suddenly there was a place for people to meet and discuss religion, phylosophy and ,most disturbing of all,politcs.In the 15th and the 16th century
the Ottoman empire made numerous attempts to ban cofee and cofee houses,but none was successful.
The punishment for drinking cofee was at the whim of the ruler,ranging from a dunk in the Bosphorous river in a leather satchel to , at one point,execution.
However,any attempts to ban the drink met fiarce oposition and it was apparent that coffee and the cofeehouses were not going go away.
By the 16th century, cofee had become an itegral part of the islamic life;Ottoman law even allowed a woman to sue her husband for a divorce if he did not provide with her daily quota of coffee.
In two hundred years the cofee bean had moved from relative obscurity to take its place as a promonent part of the islamic society.
Men met in the crowded coffeehouses to discuss politics and religion,cofee was always offered to guests in the home and pilgrim, merchants and soldiers carried a personal supply
of beans with them on their travels,thereby spreading the drink to every corner of the islamic world.
In Europe,merchants brought home the stories of the riches of the east:the lavish palaces of the Sultan ,harems,eunuchs,silks,spices and a mistirious,dark drink ,'black as soot,that the europeans knew only as the arabian wine.
coffee gets into Europe....Continue.....
