Coffee and History

Coffee and History a World of Adventure ...

Beer may be the oldest man-made brew, with wine a distant second. Beer recipes date to at least 6000 BC, but the oldest winemaking processes date to about the turn of the first millennium.

The history of their younger cousin, coffee, grew a few hundred years later, though no one knows how old the coffee plant itself is.

However, some archaeological evidence does show that humans were eating coffee berries as long ago as one hundred thousand years.

In the history of Coffee, one legend says that a goat herder in Ethiopia observed his charges eating the red berries from a nearby tree and became excited. Trying them himself, he felt a great lift and by 600 AD that magical berry, and the brew made from drying and grinding its seeds, had found its way to what is now Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

Coffee and History stories tell of a native of India smuggling the precious coffee seeds from the tree out of Arabia around 1650 AD, then planting them in the hills of Chikmagalur. Arabian law forbade the exporting of coffee beans that could germinate, effectively controlling coffee trade for centuries.

Whether myth or the true history of coffee, the fruit of those seeds now forms a third of India's large coffee output.

The British, Dutch and French, spread coffee beans to other countries during their travels.

The Dutch were responsible for the introduction of Coffee to Java in the 18th century. From those plantings, Coffee and history tell us, came the famed tree coveted by the King of France, and presented to him as a gift.

Louis XIV of France, finding the tree didn't tolerate frost well, had a greenhouse erected to supply him with the coffee beans to make the brew he so savored. It is said that from that source came the cultivars used in Central and South America.

Reaching Martinique around 1720, coffee sprouts were planted and grew well in the hot Caribbean climate. From the thousands of coffee bean trees that resulted, some were transported to Mexico where the product now forms one of their largest exports.

The History of Coffee then make's its way to French Guiana, where the tree grew well in that steamy atmosphere. Seeing an opportunity, a rascal named Francisco de Melo Palheta solicited the aid of the governor's wife to smuggle coffee seeds out of the country. As he prepared to leave for Brazil, the lady handed him a bouquet of flowers containing the illicit coffee beans.

Brazil is now one of the largest coffee producers on Earth.