Coffee History

The history of coffee is intensely interesting and action filled. Like any new commodity in the past (think spices), coffee’s history is sprinkled with robbery, small wars, and techniques of isolation.

There is a legend that tells of coffee being discovered when an Arabian shepherd noticed that the goats in his care became more active and sprightly after eating cherries from a particular shrub. He tasted it and discovered the wonders and flavor of coffee. From there, a monk discovered coffee blends and coffee spread into the world. However, fascinating it may sound, history tells us that this legend does not tell the truth of coffee history.

The consumption of coffee as we know today began in Arabia. It was there that coffee beans were first roasted and then brewed. Drinking coffee, then called something like “bean broth” was something of a religious ritual that inevitably spilt over into the secular lives of the Arabians.

They were very much careful to protect this precious commodity by boiling and parching the beans – resulting in no coffee bean ever growing outside Arabia or Africa. It was in the 15th century, when an Indian smuggled seeds by strapping them across his abdominal area.

The coffee production then sprouted in Europe and it was the Dutch who first built a coffee plant in the continent. They also built the first coffee estate in Java (today as part of Indonesia).

The Dutch then began gifting seedling to members of the European royalty. From France, a seedling was smuggled to the Caribbean where pirates also managed to take a branch. Coffee spread in Martinique and eventually spread to Latin America, in particular, Brazil.

Coffee history has a story fit to be made into a movie. With kings and queens, pirates, army officers fighting over a precious seedling, it is only proof of coffee’s great influence in the taste buds of humans from the past until today, and we can be sure it will continue until the future.