Coffee
An origin story
The story of Coffee is not a liner one. Learn its origins here
The Origins of Coffee
Coffee, as a beverage, has been around for quite a while. While the arabica and robusta varieties have been around for significantly longer, the drink we know and love today can be traced back to around 1,000 years ago. The origin story of coffee takes place in Ethiopia, when a goat herder, known as Kaldi, noticed his goats eating a strange fruit that ended up filling them with energy and keeping them up all night. After this observation, Kaldi reported his findings to his fellow monks. As the story goes the monks did not approve of the use of these berries and threw the lot into the fire, from which an amazing aroma came forth. The monks retrieved the berries , crushed them and dissolved them in hot water. Yielding the worlds first cup of coffee.. They found that the drink helped them stay awake during long hours of prayer, and thus, the first mankind-coffee love was born. As word of this elixir traveled, it soon turned into coffee as we know it today.
Coffee makes its way to the Europe and the Western world
It is widely believed that Coffee was first introduced to Europe in the 16th century on the Mediterranean island of Malta via Venetian Merchants who in exchange were made very wealthy from its proceeds. It was in the 17th century when European travelers brought home stories of a black and energizing beverage, and shortly after, coffee became a staple. However, the reception of it in Europe was met with apprehension and skepticism; some called it a drink made by Satan, and it was eventually condemned when it finally came to Venice in 1615. It took the intervention of Pope Clement VIII to the clean the reputation of coffee and make it a socially acceptable drink. This largely because after he himself tried it , coffee became mandatory at his quarters. Thus the spread of Catholicism and Islam did a lot to aid the proliferation of coffee and its popularity across the known world. Before long coffee shops started springing up in Europe’s largest counties, and were socially much the same as the modern day cafe. It was also in Europe where the idea of having coffee in the morning grew popular, as it tended to wake people up more than beer or wine did. By around 1650, there were over 250 coffee shops in London alone.
Coffee spreads to the Americas
In 1714, a coffee seeding was gifted to King Louis XIV from the Dutch for The Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. A few years later, in 1723, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu was given a clipping from the kings coffee plant, with instructions to plant it in Frances colony of Martinique. He sailed without hast. Lay before him was a treacherous journey, that included horrendous storms and pirates nearly capturing the ship. Clieu planted the coffee clipping on the island of Martinique. This sole seeding is responsible for the birth of nearly 18 million coffee trees within 50 years, which soon sprouted in Haiti (Saint-Domingue) Haiti, Mexico into the Caribbean, as well as South and Central America. On the island of Haiti (Saint-Domingue), from its first cultivation in 1734 to its zenith in 1788 this small island supplied half of all the worlds coffee as a French colony. It is safe to say that at this time the French dominated the worlds coffee trade.
Coffee makes its way to the America
During this same time period, coffee slowly made its way overseas to the United States. Because coffee plants have a hard time growing in the United States, it wasn’t able to efficiently be cultivated, and in addition, tea was still the preferred hot, caffeinated beverage. However, during the Boston Tea Party of 1773, coffee resulted in knocking tea off the chart and claiming first place as the preferred drink in the United States..