History of Coffee - Part 2

How was this first coffee?
Coffee was actually first used as a solid, food-like substance! Only later was it used as a beverage. The Arabian nomads would mix the coffee beans together with other meats, fats, and beans to form a hard, oval shaped cake. The nomads would take these cakes with them on long journeys. It is thought that the caffeine in the coffee was used to keep the nomads awake-sort-of an ancient Arabian No-Doz!
The Arabs were very superstitious about the plant. They thought that if they showed it to anyone, the seed would not germinate. The Arabs had a monopoly on coffee for several generations, prohibiting the export of the green beans, or seeds. They kept the plant a secret from the rest of the world because they believed the plant had great powers.
The Arab’s coffee monopoly was finally broken in the 17th century when an Indian pilgrim names Smygloud Badu Budam smuggled seven seeds into India. The trees grew like mad there, and the monopoly was finally broken.
The First coffee blend was created by the Dutch
In 1696, a governor of the Dutch East India Company sent the first Arabian coffee seedling to the Dutch colony of Java. The Dutch became the first Europeans to grow coffee, and coffee was on its way to becoming a world-wide product. The Java coffees of that day were excellent and considered the world’s best coffees, second only to the Arabian Mochas.
The Dutch were very enterprising and managed to find a new market by creating a new concept in coffee- the coffee blend. They took the two most popular coffees and mixed them together to male “Mocha Java,” the world’s oldest coffee blend. Have you heard of it?

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Chris

A little coffee history

The History of Coffee

Coffee has been through a lot to get where it is today. In order to really appreciate coffee, we have to go back to its roots….Literally. Coffee is indigenous to only one country-Ethiopia, which is located on the African continent. In fact, if you travel to Ethiopia today, you will still find coffee plants growing in the wild. Every coffee plant in the world that grows today is a descendent of these original Ethiopian plants. So how did coffee become so popular around the world?

It all began with Kaldi and his goats

Legend has it that one day many centuries ago, a young Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi found his goats bounding about the hillsides in a joyous frenzy. They were having a ball! Even the old and tired goats were prancing around and acting young again. Kaldi was confused. Tired and worn out himself, he watched the goats carefully to find their secrete. He found the answer when he saw the goats eating cherries from a nearby tree. After trying a few cherries himself, he felt suddenly rejuvenated.

That’s when the monks got involved

A monk from a nearby monastery came upon Kaldi one day, determined to find out how he and the goats got all their energy. The monk ate from the plant and he, too, was revitalized. He brought some cherries back to the monastery to help the monks stay awake during the long religious services. Soon all the monasteries used the coffee cherries as a part of their services. The monks believed the plants were magical and were linked to the religious.
During the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Ethiopians invaded Arabia (now called Yemen) and brought some of their magical seeds. The Arabs did not drink alcohol, so they were enraptured by the fruit that has some of the same invigorating and stimulating properties. The Arabs became the first people to actually cultivate coffee plants. In fact, the first recorded word for coffee is in Arabic. It is qahwah (KAH wah), meaning “Arab’s wine.”

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Chris