A short history of coffee

coffee history

Is it possible to start a book about coffee without tracing some of the history (and legend) of this beverage, even though many people know it? The word ‘coffee’ is a story in itself. Does it derive from Kaffa where the plant grew wild, or from kawah (kahweh) which means strength and is also a poetic name for wine? Whatever its origins, it became coffee. It all began, it is said, because of some excited goats which stayed awake all night, prompting a shepherd somewhere in Yemen to ask advice of the priests in the vicinity. The priests soon observed that the animals were eating red berries from a bush, so they tried these berries themselves and found that they could attend their prayers without the problem of falling asleep. It appears, therefore, that it is not because of a compound responsible for the taste that the whole story started. In fact, it was in Ethiopia (or was it Abyssinia?) that coffee was first grown and a beverage made from it. It was exported to the other side of the Red Sea in Aden in the Fifteenth century. As its property of preventing drowsiness was taken advantage of as a devotional antisoporific, there was fierce opposition from the strictly orthodox Muslims. The supposed intoxicant beverage was prohibited by the Koran.

goats in Yemen eating red berries later to be known as coffee beans

Notwithstanding the threat of divine penalties, the use of the beverage spread rapidly among the Arabians. A hundred years later, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the first coffee houses were established in Constantinople, where the new habit also provoked the ire of the religious orders. As a result of complaints to the Sultan, heavy taxes were imposed on the coffee houses but this did not prevent them from flourishing. After another century, a coffee house opened in London. Here also it encountered hostility, but more for political reasons as coffee houses were thought to be seditious meeting places. After an attempt to suppress them, the most effective way of reducing coffee consumption here too, was to introduce heavy taxes. However, this had no obvious effect. At around the same period coffee was introduced into France where wine merchants feared that the new beverage would compete with wine. Anyway after the tribulations at the beginning, coffee drinking became an established custom in Europe. For two centuries the only source of coffee was Yemen (Arabia).

Social impact of coffee

iced coffee

Economy always being an important factor, it has to be noted that in Yemen, coffee at first replaced (although never completely) a beverage made with ‘qat’ (Caltha edlllis), by bringing in more money. However, cultivation, collection and treatment of coffee are time-consuming. Nowadays coffee is hardly cultivated at all in this part of the world and has been replaced by ‘qat’ which is consumed (leaves arcchewed) on a large scale for a purpose similar to that of coffee, becoming again economically important for the growers if not for the country. For all that, the history of coffee has not come to an end. People liked the social atmosphere of coffee drinking but did not want the possible effect of caffeine, hence the decaffeination process, or of some acids, hence the steam-treatment. For others, making coffee from the roasted beans was too much trouble, hence the preparation of soluble coffees, decaffeinated or not. All these treatments altcr the content, and therefore the taste of the beverage. There is now a trend to new products (iced coffee, iced cappuccino for example). There are also ‘gourmet’ people who buy specialty roasted coffee and increase the side-market for coffee-pots or espresso makers by brewing coffee according to their taste.

SOURCE : Coffee Flavor Chemistry, Ivon Flament

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