Coffee was
first discovered in Northern Africa in an area we know today
as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the
name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky
after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena,
Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these
berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy laden
fruit quickly spread throughout the region.
Monks hearing about
this amazing fruit, dried the berries so that they could be transported
to distant monasteries.They reconstituted these berries in water,
ate the fruit, and drank the liquid to provide stimulation for
a more awakened time for prayer.
Coffee berries
were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula, and
were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen.
From there,
coffee traveled to Turkey where coffee beans were roasted for
the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed,
and then boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage
we enjoy today.
Coffee first
arrived on the European continent by means of Venetian trade
merchants. Once in Europe this new beverage fell under harsh
criticism from the Catholic church. Many felt the pope should
ban coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise,
the pope, already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring
it a truly Christian beverage.
Coffee houses
spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for intellectual
exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage, and
forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity.
In
the 1700's, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of
a French infantry captain who nurtured one small plant on its
long journey across the Atlantic. This one plant, transplanted
to the Caribbean Island of Martinique, became the predecessor
of over 19 million trees on the island within 50 years. It was
from this humble beginning that the coffee plant found its way
to the rest of the tropical regions of South and Central America.
After the
historic Boston Tea Party, coffee was declared the national
drink of the then colonized United States by the Continental
Congress, in protest of the excessive tax on tea levied by the
British crown.
Today, coffee
is a giant global industry employing more than 20 million people.
This commodity ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars
traded worldwide. With over 400 billion cups consumed every
year, coffee is the world's most popular beverage. If you can
imagine, in Brazil alone, over 5 million people are employed
in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants.
Sales of
premium specialty coffees in the United States have reached
the multi billion dollar level, and are increasing significantly
on an annual basis.
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