Coffee’s
origins are frequently told story attributes the discovery to a herd of tired,
hungry goats and their curious Ethiopian caretaker, Kaldi, in the sixth
century. Tired of searching for greener pastures, Kaldi’s herd began to
nibble the red berries off the strange bushes. Soon, the goats began to
demonstrate unusual behaviour. When Kaldi, witnessing this phenomenal change,
tried the berries, he was soon cavorting across the hillside himself. When he
confided his discovery of the berries to the monk, news began to spread across
to the nearby monastery.
Until the tenth century, coffee was
considered a food. Ethiopian tribesmen mixed wild berries with animal fat,
rolled them into balls, and ate them during their nomadic journey. By the
thirteenth century, coffee’s restorative powers were well documented in the
Islamic world. Islamic pilgrims spread coffee’s virtues throughout the
Middle East and by the end of the fifteenth century, coffeehouses were favored
as a meeting place for men.
To maintain tight control of their
profitable coffee trade, Arab traders sold only boiled or roasted beans.
Coffee beans that could not germinate and grow into fruit-bearing coffee
plants were not allowed out of Arabia. It was not until the early seventeenth
century that fertile beans were smuggled into India, and then Europeans came
and cultivated these supreme beans.
