History of Coffee

White flowers with a Jasmine like scent. Red berries encasing two beans growing on trees with smooth, luscious dark green leaves. The name of the tree? Coffee. It is the most valuable legally traded commodity in the world after oil. Coffee industry employs over 100 million people in the world. Once called the “Wine of Araby,” coffee has survived early controversies regarding its intoxicating qualities to become one of the most popular drink of choice. The magic of coffee was aptly captured by a famous anonymous poem published in London in 1674:

….that Grave and Wholesome Liquor
That heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker,
Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad,
And cheers the spirit, without making Mad.
Any coffee drinker can attest to these unique qualities of coffee.

Romantic Beginning

Around c 850, some goats and an intuitive goatherd, named Kaldi, made a discovery that would soon take the world by storm. As the story went, some goats tasted these berries and became perky. An observant goatherd saw the effects and decided to try it for himself. Soon, he was dancing with the goats too! Noting its invigorating effects, he passed his discovery to the local monks. Soon these monks discovered a way to make a hot drink, which they used to keep themselves awake during overnight religious ceremony.

History tells us that the nomadic Oromo people of East Africa of the same era also found a way to make energy balls with the protein-rich coffee beans. Rolled together with animal fat, this early version of power bars were consumed to give warriors much needed energy for battle.

A Yemen Innovation

In time, the coffee beans made their way across a narrow strip of the Red Sea to Yemen where the drink quickly rose in popularity. The art of making coffee drink was often attributed to Muhammad al Dhabhani, scholar and a member of the Sufi order of Islam. He proclaimed that under the influence of coffee, he could”…unhorse forty men and possess forty women.” No wonder, Sufi monks readily used the brew to stay awake during nocturnal prayer sessions.
The Arabs then began seriously cultivating coffee and coined the word, “qahwa,” the Arab word for wine, from which coffee is derived. Like a wildfire, Muslim pilgrims spread coffee throughout the Islam world. By the end of 15th century, coffee had taken hold of Persia, Turkey and North Africa. The word Mocha, a household word in the coffee industry originated from the Port of Al-Mokha. Coffee was so popular that the port became synonymous with coffee, and many simply referred to the drink as Mokha.