Coffee History

According to legend an Arabian goat herder named Kaldi found his goats dancing joyously around a dark green leafed shrub with bright red cherries in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Kaldi soon determined that it was the bright red cherries on the shrub that were causing the peculiar euphoria; and after trying the cherries himself, he learned of their powerful effect. The stimulating effect was then exploited by monks at a local monastery to stay awake during extended hours of prayer and distributed to other monasteries around the world. Coffee was born.

During the Ethiopian invasion of southern Arabia in 525 AD, coffee berries were brought to the Arabian Peninsula to what is today the country of Yemen. Thus the first true cultivation of coffee began in the sixth century on. Arabs consumed coffee as a fruit, boiled it with water to make a beverage. When the coffee seeds were transported to Turkey, they were roasted for the first time over an open fire.

Coffee came to the European continent by means of Venetian trade merchants around 1615. By 1763, there were over 200 coffee bars in Venice alone. It was in the early 1700s that a French infantry captain brought the first coffee plant to the New World, which he planted on the French-colonized island of Martinique, in the Caribbean.

Espresso is a fairly recent innovation that was originated in France in 1822. Italy refined and perfected the espresso machine. Espresso is a way of life in Italy to the extent that cafe prices for coffee are regulated by the Italian government. There are over 200,000 coffee bars in Italy today. Presently, coffee as a world commodity is second only to oil.