Our daily cup of coffee is an important part of our morning routine. Perhaps the most important. How else are we supposed to wake up? We can no longer ignore coffee from our daily life. But did you know that coffee originally comes from Ethiopia and we didn’t have coffee in Europe until the 17th century?
The coffee legend
There are several legends about the discovery of coffee. The oldest dates back to the first century AD. to a goatherd in Kaffa, a province in Ethiopia. He noticed that his goats were much more energetic after eating a certain type of berry. That berry had a bitter taste when not cooked or roasted. Legend has it that this is how mankind discovered coffee. They called it ‘buna’, ‘bunn’ or ‘bunchum’, or as we would say ‘bean’.
Coffee with the Arabs
From the eleventh century, coffee was exported from Ethiopia to Arabia. The Persians were impressed by the stimulant drink they called ‘Islamic wine’ as Muslims are not allowed to drink wine. They called it ‘qahwah’, which means as much as ‘gives strength’ or ‘power’. The name ‘coffee’ that we still use today is derived from this.
The fact that Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol probably caused coffee to become popular so quickly. In the 16th century, coffee was recognized in Arabia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Southeastern Europe. In 1530 and 1532 even the first coffee houses opened in Damascus and Aleppo.
How Europe discovered coffee
By the end of the 16th century, stories of coffee reached Europe. Venice was the first to trade with the Arabs. Coffee quickly became hugely popular and coffee houses sprang up like mushrooms all over Europe.
The drink even reached the Pope. Opponents of coffee saw it as a drink of the Devil and wanted to ban it. The then Pope Clement VIII tasted the drink before judging and was so pleased with it that he approved the Papal. The bourgeoisie was also satisfied with coffee, because the drink made drunkards sober and turned into reliable workers.
Until the end of the 17th century, the coffee trade was in the hands of the Arabs. This changed when a Dutch merchant managed to steal a coffee plant from Mecca. He experimented with this in the East Indian colony of Java and soon the Netherlands also produced coffee beans.
The breakthrough of coffee in Europe
But the real breakthrough of coffee in Europe came in 1715. Coffee trees could already be grown in greenhouses and one of those trees was a gift from the Amsterdam mayor to Louis XIV. France thus became the largest coffee producer and consumer of that time and that one coffee tree would be the ancestor of millions of coffee trees.
Coffee today
Coffee has a rich history and still plays an important role in our daily life. In addition, it is still an important trade product. Coffee is the second most important commodity after Petroleum. Today our coffee comes from Central America, Brazil and the tropical parts of South America and Brazil is responsible for a third of the coffee production.