To ensure that we’re in the same place, let’s start with the definition. It is a drink that’s brewed with very heated or boiling water, along with beans of coffee that have already been ground and roasted.
Coffee beans are sourced from coffee plants. They are members of the botanical genus Coffea. The beans are contained in the plant’s fruit, which is referred to as cherries; it takes approximately a year for the cherry to mature and become ripe so that the bean is able to be picked.
Plants (which are actually coffee trees that have been cut to a smaller size) require mild temperatures, ample shade, and plenty of rainfall. This is why they can only be productively grown in temperate regions of the world between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. They are located in the Western Hemisphere, that’s between Central Mexico in the north and the Amazon rain forest in the South. This area is known as “the bean belt” or coffee belt.
Coffee is slightly acidic and somewhat bitter. It’s thought to be a health-enhancing drink, it’s also a mild stimulant because of its caffeine content. it’s the second most popular drink in the world (right behind tea, and not including water).
We’ll examine those features in more detail after we’ve looked at the history of coffee, meanwhile, you should get a coffee subscription and enjoy the tasty bean juice. Here are the two most frequently told stories about the discovery of coffee.
Ethiopia
The most exciting story is about a goat herder from the Ethiopian region called Kaffa. (Hmm…Kaffa? Coffee? That’s pretty cool.) According to legend, his goats discovered a coffee plant, he attempted chewing the beans and was amazed by their stimulant effect, so he brought them to a monastery in the area.
Unsatisfied monks threw the coffee beans into a fire in order to dispose of them but were amazed by the smell of roasted beans and rescued them by throwing them into boiling water to preserve the beans. Eureka! Coffee!
It is believed that Ethiopians used to chew coffee beans for centuries before that. It appears they’d grind the beans to mix it with animal fat or ghee, and then take the mix for long journeys, to be utilized for energy and stimulation.
Around the year 1100, some Ethiopian tribes mixed coffee with porridge, and later, they started making wine from the beans or boiling the beans to create coffee. This tale isn’t as appealing as the goat-herder story and isn’t as convincing, but it’s more likely to be true.
Yemen
The story of the origins of Yemen is also fascinating. An ordained priest (who was also a doctor) was banished to a Yemeni desert cave that was on the edge of dying from starvation. Perhaps he stumbled upon an undiscovered coffee plant or in a cooler version of the story a bird brought him a branch from a coffee tree.
Finding the cherries too bitter to take raw, he set the cherries into a flame to cook them, but that made them difficult to chew. He then boiled them, and you’ll understand the next part of the story: his exile was lifted, he took coffee beans back home, and everyone lived happily forever. The pastor was declared to be a saint and an entire monastery was constructed to honor his memory.
Great story. What we do know in certainty, however. Coffee beans were shipped from Ethiopia in the 15th century to Yemen in the 15th century. Sufi monks used coffee to keep them alert during their daily prayer times. It was the Yemeni city of Mocha (hmmm…mocha! Interesting!) and also became a central distribution point for the highly prized Mocha beans that grow in the mountains in that region. They were then shipped to Europe and other ports in the 17th century.
This means that we are aware of the fact that many thousands of years ago they were drinking coffee in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East.