In National Geographic, the story was related this way -
AFRICAN ORIGINS (Circa A.D. 800)
Goats will eat anything. Just ask Kaldi the legendary Ethiopian goatherd. Kaldi, the story goes, noticed his herd dancing from one coffee shrub to another, grazing on the cherry-red berries containing the beans. He copped a few himself and was soon frolicking with his flock.
Witnessing Kaldi’s goatly gambol, a monk plucked berries for his brothers. That night they were uncannily alert to divine inspiration.
Coffee later crossed the Red Sea to Arabia.
ESCAPE FROM ARABIA (Circa 1000 to 1600)
Coffee as we know it kicked off in Arabia, where roasted beans were first brewed around A.D. 1000. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking coffee religiously. The “bean broth” drove dervishes into orbit, kept worshippers awake, and splashed over into secular life. And wherever Islam went, coffee went too: North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and India.
Arabia made export beans infertile by parching or boiling, and it is said that no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 1600s—until Baba Budan. As tradition has it, this Indian pilgrim-cum-smuggler left Mecca with fertile seeds strapped to his belly. Baba’s beans bore fruit and initiated an agricultural expansion that would soon reach Europe's colonies.
EUROPE CATCHES THE BUZZ (1615 to 1700)
“The Turks have a drink of black color....I will bring some with me...to the Italians”. Thus a merchant of Venice introduced Europe to coffee in 1615. But the end product didn’t amount to a hill of beans to many traders—they wanted the means of production. The race was on.
The Dutch cleared the initial hurdle in 1616, spiriting a coffee plant into Europe for the first time. Then in 1696 they founded the first European-owned coffee estate, on colonial Java, now part of Indonesia.
Business boomed and the Dutch sprinted ahead to adjacent islands. Confident beyond caution, Amsterdam began bestowing coffee trees on aristocrats around Europe...
Resolute, de Clieu led a moonlight raid of the Jardin des Plantes—over the wall, into the hothouse, out with a sprout.
Mission accomplished, de Clieu sailed for Martinique.
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC (Circa 1720 to 1770)
On the return passage to Martinique, wrote de Clieu, a “basely jealous” passenger, “being unable to get this coffee plant away from me, tore off a branch.”
Then came the pirates who nearly captured the ship; then came a storm which nearly sank it. Finally, skies grew clear. Too clear. Water grew scarce and was rationed. De Clieu gave half of his allotment to his stricken seedling.
Under armed guard, the sprout grew strong in Martinique, yielding an extended family of approximately 18 million trees in 50 years or so. Its progeny would supply Latin America, where a dangerous liaison would help bring coffee to the masses...
COFFEE BLOOMS IN BRAZIL (Circa 1727 to 1800)
1727: Brazil's government wants a cut of the coffee market; but first, they need an agent to smuggle seeds from a coffee country. Enter Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta, the James Bond of Beans.
Colonel Palheta is dispatched to French Guiana, ostensibly to mediate a border dispute. Eschewing the fortresslike coffee farms, suave Palheta chooses a path of less resistance—the governor’s wife. The plan pays off. At a state farewell dinner she presents him a sly token of affection: a bouquet spiked with seedlings.
From these scant shoots sprout the world’s greatest coffee empire. By 1800 Brazil’s monster harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to an everyday elixir, a drink for the people.
Initially, coffee was brewed from green, unroasted beans to yield a tea-like beverage. In the late 13th century, Arabians roasted and ground coffee before brewing it.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, extensive planting of trees occurred in Yemen region of Arabia. From Yemen, coffee beans spread throughout Arabian Peninsula and via Othman Empire to Turkey. At that time, coffee was used for its medicinal properties and as a ritual drink.
The world's first coffee shop opened in Constantinople in 1475.
Coffeehouses appeared when it was introduced into Europe in the early 1600s.
The Arabs used so much coffee that the Christian Church denounced coffee as "the hellish black brew."
However, Pope Clement VIII found it great tasting that he baptized it and made it a Christian beverage.
In 1675, Franz Georg Kolschitzky, a Viennese who had lived in Turkey, opened Central Europe's first coffeehouse. He also started the habit of filtering out the grounds, sweetening it and adding milk.
With the increasing popularity of coffee in Europe, the Dutch cultivated it in their colonies during the 17th century.
Until the 1870s, most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over charcoal fire.
Espresso is a process of extracting flavor from coffee beans. In 1901, Luigi Bezzera filed a patent for a machine that contained a boiler and four groups - each group could take varying sized filters that contained the coffee grounds. Boiling water and steam were forced into the cup. Desiderio Pavoni purchased his patent and began manufacturing machines based on patent. The first espresso machine or "La Pavoni" was installed in the US in 1927 at Regio's New York.
In 1938, M. Cremonesi developed a piston pump that forced hot, not boiling water through the coffee. The piston pump removed the burnt taste of coffee which was the case with the Pavoni machine. The resulting coffee had a layer of foam or crema.
TRIVIA: Coffee was usually brewed by Arabian men and then drunk by Arabian women to alleviate menstrual discomfort.
Listen to podcast on coffee history - click on Cup, Look and Listen
Coffee Drinking Habits Around the World - Middle East to Europe, America and Asia
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