History of coffee

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The history of coffee has been recorded as far back as the eleventh century^[1]. During that time,coffee remained largely confined to Ethiopia where its native beans were first cultivated. Ethiopian highlanders first cultivated the coffee bean. However, the Arab world began expanding its trade horizons, and the beans moved into northern Africa and were mass-cultivated. From there, the beans entered the Indian and European markets, and the popularity of the beverage spread.

Contents 1 Origins 2 The Muslim world 3 Europe 3.1 England 3.2 France 3.3 Austria 4 Production 5 Notes 6 References

[edit] Origins

Main article: Origins of coffee

The word "coffee" entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè. This word was created via Turkish kahve, which in turn came into being via Arabic qahwa, a truncation of qahhwat al-bun or wine of the bean. Traditional Islam prohibits the use of alcohol as a beverage, and coffee provided a suitable alternative to wine.

There are several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed goats of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same vitality. A similar myth attributes the discovery of coffee to an Ethiopian goatherder named Kaldi and the Legend of Dancing Goats.

One possible origin of both the beverage and the name is the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, where the coffee plant originated (its name there is bunn or bunna).

[edit] The Muslim world

The earliest mention of coffee may be a reference to Bunchum in the works of the 10th century CE Persian physician Razi, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.

The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled "Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa".^[2] He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Coffee's usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular among Sufis. A translation^[3] traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.^{[citation needed]}

Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean.^{[citation needed]} The first coffee house was Kiva Han, which opened in Istanbul in 1471^[4]

Coffee was at first not well received. In 1511, it was forbidden for its stimulating effect by conservative, orthodox imams at a theological court in Mecca. However, the popularity of the drink led these bans to be overturned in 1524 by an order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I. In Cairo, Egypt, a similar ban was instituted in 1532, and the coffeehouses and warehouses containing coffee beans were sacked.^[5] Similarly, coffee was banned by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church some time before the 17th century, along with smoking tobacco and chewing the mild stimulant khat, as it was seen as a Muslim and pagan practice.^[6] However, in the second half of the 19th century, Ethiopian attitudes softened towards coffee drinking, and its consumption spread rapidly between 1880 and 1886; according to Richard Pankhurst, "this was largely due to [Emperor] Menilek, who himself drank it, and to Abuna Matewos who did much to dispel the belief of the clergy that it was a Muslim drink."^[7]

[edit] Europe

Coffee was first imported to Italy. The vibrant trade between the Italian city of Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants decided to introduce coffee to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for the beverage. In this way, coffee was introduced to Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was "baptized" by Pope Clement VIII in 1600 despite appeals to ban the Muslim drink. The first European coffee house (apart from those in the Ottoman Empire, mentioned above) was opened in Italy in 1645.^[4]

[edit] England

Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account. The first coffeehouse in England was opened in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods. Edwards imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The popularity of coffeehouses spread rapidly in Europe, and later, America. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.

The banning of women from coffehouses was not universal, but does appear to have been common in Europe. In Germany women frequented them, but in England they were banned^[8]. Many believed coffee to have several medicinal properties in this period. For example, a 1661 tract entitled "A character of coffee and coffee-houses", written by one "M.P.", lists some of these perceived virtues:

“

'Tis extolled for drying up the Crudities of the Stomack, and for expelling Fumes out of the Head. Excellent Berry! which can cleanse the English-man's Stomak of Flegm, and expel Giddinesse out of his Head.

”

Not everyone was in favour of this new commodity, however. For example, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" declared:

“

…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age.[2]

”

[edit] France

Antoine Galland (1646-1715) in his aforementioned translation described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate: "We are indebted to these great [Arab] physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis XIV of France, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Thevenot gave some of the beans to his friends, one of whom was de la Croix. However, the major spread of the popularity of this beverage in Paris was soon to come. In 1669, Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Mehmed IV, arrived in Paris with his entourage bringing with him a large quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they provide their French and European guests with coffee to drink, but they also donated some beans to the royal court. Between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinking coffee among Parisians.

[edit] Austria

The first coffeehouse in Austria opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, by using supplies from the spoils obtained after defeating the Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, opened the coffee house and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee. Until recently, this was celebrated in Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window. Melange is the typical Viennese coffee, which comes mixed with hot foamed milk and a glass of water. The first coffeehouses in Poland were opened in Kraków in the 16th or 17th century because of their close trade ties with the East, most notably the Turks.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Production

The introduction of coffee to the Americas is attributed to France through its colonization of many parts of the continent starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where the first French coffee plantations were founded. The first coffee plantation in Brazil occurred in 1727 when Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta smuggled seeds from French Guiana. By the 1800s, Brazil’s harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to a drink for the masses. Brazil, which like most other countries cultivates coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for the viability of the plantations until the abolition of slavery in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48).

For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazil was the biggest producer of coffee and a virtual monopolist in the trade. However, a policy of maintaining high prices soon opened opportunities to other nations, such as Colombia,^[9] Guatemala, Indonesia and Viet Nam, now second only to Brazil as the major coffee producer in the world. Large-scale production in Vietnam began following normalization of trade relations with the US in 1995.^[10] Nearly all of the coffee grown there is Robusta.^[11]

Despite the origins of coffee cultivation in Ethiopia, that country produced only a small amount for export until the Twentieth Century, and much of that not from the south of the country but from the environs of Harar in the northeast. The Kingdom of Kaffa, home of the plant, was estimated to produce between 50,000 and 60,000 kilograms of coffee beans in the 1880s. Commercial production effectively began in 1907 with the founding of the inland port of Gambela, and greatly increased afterwards: 100,000 kilograms of coffee was exported from Gambela in 1908, while in 1927-8 over 4 million kilograms passed through that port.^[12] Coffee plantations were also developed in Arsi Province at the same time, and were eventually exported by means of the Addis Ababa - Djibouti Railway. While only 245,000 kilograms were freighted by the Railway, this amount jumped to 2,240,000 kilograms by 1922, surpassed exports of "Harari" coffee by 1925, and reached 9,260,000 kilograms in 1936.^[13]

Australia is a minor coffee producer, with little product for export, but its coffee history goes back to 1880 when the first of 500 acres began to be developed in an area between northern New South Wales and Cooktown. Today there are several producers of Arabica coffee in Australia that use a mechanical harvesting system invented in 1981. [3]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• The Blessed Bean - history of coffee. Retrieved June 19th, 2006.
• 1949 Encyclopedia Britannica. Otis, McAllister & Co. 1954
• Birsel, Salâh. - Kahveler kitabı. - 1. baskı. - Istanbul : Koza Yayınları, 1975. - (Olaylar-belgeler-anılar ; 8).
• Burn, Jacob Henry, d. (1869). A descriptive catalogue of the London traders, tavern, and coffee-house toke. 2nd ed. London.
• Chew, Samual C (1974). The Crescent and the Rose. Oxford University Press, New York.
• Darby, M. (1983) The Islamic Perspective, An aspect of British Architecture and Design in the 19th century. Leighton House Gallery, London.
• Davids, Kenneth (1991). Coffee.
• Ellis, Aytoun (1956). The Penny Universities : A History of the Coffee-Houses. London : Secker & Warburg.
• Galland, Antoine (1699) De l’origine et du progrez du café, Éd. originale J. Cavelier Paris, 1992- La Bibliothèque, coll. L'Écrivain Voyageur
• Illy, Francesco & Riccardo (1989). From Coffee to Espresso
• Ibn al-Imād al-Hanbali (d.1089 AH/1679 AD). Shadharāt al-dhahab fi akhbār man dhahab, al-Juz' 8. Cairo, 1931.

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