A Brief History of Coffee

There is much controversy over the origins and history of coffee. The beginnings of coffee have been traced to specific people and places in particular times, but none that can definitely lay claim to having "discovered" coffee. Many books have been written chronicling the origins of coffee with all the drama, romance, and mythology reserved for only the great discoveries in history. The most popular story about the discovery of coffee beans is the legend of the dancing goats from before 800 A.D.

Kali, a goatherd in Arabia, found his goats dancing near a shrub with dark shiny leaves and bright red berries. These berries found their way to the local monastery, where experimentation led to the use of coffee by monks, which allowed for livelier evening prayers. According to this story coffee was spread from monastery to monastery until everyone was drinking coffee. In the 16th century coffee was supposedly condemned by the followers of Mohammed, who complained that coffee threatened their religion by luring people from the mosques in favor of coffeehouses.

The spread of coffee was quite remarkable, as biological evidence suggests that coffee originated in Ethiopia, where it still grows wild. African cultures ate coffee beans as a food or chewed them to extract the caffeine. Coffee then spread to Arabia, with one theory being that the Ethiopian invasion and rule of Yemen in 525 A.D. allowed a fifty-year window of opportunity for Coffea arabica to be introduced from Africa. From this time on, it has been cultivated in Yemen.

Legend has it that despite fervent protection of their discovery, the Arabs could not prevent fertile beans from being smuggled out of their country. A Moslim pilgrim in the 17th century is thought to have smuggled seven seeds back to southern India, where he planted them and they flourished. India still produces excellent coffee, and the particular area where this pilgrim supposedly planted them produces a particular variety of coffee, var. Old Chick, and more than one third of India's coffee.

The French King Louis XIV managed to procure from the Dutch a coffee tree which had originated in Mocha (Yemen), been taken to Java, then to Holland and finally to Paris. This prized possession of the king brought to fruition the construction of the first greenhouse in Europe in the early 18th century. From this very plant came most of the coffee presently growing in Latin America.

More than one variety sprang from this plant of the French and surprisingly within only a few years. Martinique and consequently Mexico, Haiti, and the Caribbean established cultivation of one variety from this plant, while var. Bourbon was cultivated from the king's plant on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, then known as the Isle of Bourbon. The Brazilian Santos coffees and the Oaxacan coffees of Mexico are said to be descended from this variety from Reunion Island.

Yet another oddity is the procurement of shoots and seeds from the French for Brazil, through dastardly deeds by way of the wife of the governor of French Guinea. The last notable move of the plant was in the late 19th century, when Brazilian coffee seeds were introduced in Kenya and Tanzania, ironically within hundreds of miles of coffee's origin.

The level of connoisseurship that exists today is a far more recent phenomenon than the history of coffee consumption may imply. The early drinkers of coffee sweetened and spiced their coffee, presumably because many recipes from this time required boiling the grounds for more than a half hour. As any coffee-lover would know, the delicate balance of a delectable cup of coffee would not have survived such preparation. For this reason Europeans heavily sugared and creamed their coffee, and in East Africa and the Middle East coffee absorbed quantities of sweet and spice, such as cardamom, prior to libation.

The connoisseurship of coffee has reached a level in the late 20th century never before experienced. This is because the population of the United States has grown substantially, and the intellectual inquiry which results from America's insatiable appetite for quality coffee has established a new niche. This niche allows for the resurgence of the small coffee farm, which employs traditional practices and a level of artisanship that cannot be recreated otherwise. The U.S. market for specialty varieties of small, farm-grown coffees has, luckily for coffee-lovers, grown such that these sources of coffee are well supported and can thrive.  The Fair Trade movement has come from this desire to guarantee rewards for the small farmers who grow fine coffee.

With the new millenium has come increased awareness of coffee that is organically-grown, using shade-grown, bird-friendly methods, with a focus on composting, recycling, and eliminating the use of pesticides and herbicides.  It is this niche market that we at Ashley & Cooper Coffee Roasters strive to meet the needs of...the consumer who is concerned with the highest quality, freshly-roasted coffee that has been grown with attention to preserving the environment, their own health, and the quality of life for the farmers and economies of coffee-producing regions.