Just so we’re all to be on the same page begin with a definition. Coffee is a beverage produced using very warm or hot water or coffee beans, which have already been roasted and ground.
Coffee beans are sourced from the coffee plant, a member of the botanical genus Coffea. They are found in the fruit of the plant, which is called a cherry; it takes approximately a year for cherries to mature and ripen so its bean is able to be picked.
These plants (which are actually coffee trees trimmed to reduce their size) require moderate temperatures, enough shade, and plenty of rain. They are only able to be grown in temperate regions of the globe between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn; in the Western Hemisphere, that’s between Central Mexico in the north and the Amazon rain forest in the South. This area is called”the bean belt” or coffee belt.
It’s slightly acidic and somewhat bitter. It’s also known to provide health benefits, it’s also a mild stimulant because of the caffeine content. In addition, is the second most consumed beverage around the globe (right ahead of tea and not including water).
We’ll be looking at those attributes in more detail, after a look at the history of coffee.
Here are the two most often-told stories of the discovery of coffee.
Ethiopia
The most exciting story is about an Ethiopian goat herder. The Ethiopian region is known as Kaffa. (Hmm…Kaffa? Coffee? That’s already cool.) According to legend, his goats discovered an old coffee plant. He attempted chewing the beans and was amazed by their stimulant effect, so it was his turn to bring them to a nearby monastery.
The monks, who were awed by the experience, threw the beans into a burning fire in order to dispose of them however they were enthralled by the aroma of the coffee beans that had been roasted and they rescued them and tossed them into boiling water to preserve the beans. Eureka! Coffee!
It’s believed that Ethiopians used to chew coffee beans long before they started to use coffee. It’s believed that they’d grind the beans and mix them with animal fat or ghee, before taking the mix for long journeys, to be used to boost energy and stimulate.
Somewhere around the 1100s in the 1100s, some Ethiopian tribes mixed coffee with porridge, eventually, they began making wine from the beans – or boiling them to make coffee. This tale isn’t as appealing as the goat-herder story however, it’s more plausible.
Yemen
The origin tale from Yemen is also very interesting. An ordained priest (who was also a doctor) was forced to be exiled to a Yemeni desert cave, where he was on the brink of starving to death. He may have found the plant of coffee – or in a cooler version of the story, the bird gave him the branch of a coffee tree.
They were bitter enough to consume raw, he put the fruit into a burning fire to make them cook, but that resulted in them becoming too hard to chew. He then simmered them, and you’ll understand the remainder of the story. after his exile had been lifted, he took coffee beans home with him, and everyone lived happily ever after. In fact, the Priest was declared saintly and an entire monastery was constructed to honor his memory.
Very nice article. Let’s see what we know about certain things, however. Coffee beans were brought from Ethiopia to Yemen around the time of 15th century, where Sufi monks used them in order to remain alert during their daily prayer times. The Yemeni town of Mocha (hmmm…mocha! Interesting!) It also became a central distribution point for the highly prized Mocha beans grown in the mountains of that region, which were shipped to Europe as well as other ports in the 17th century.
So we know for a fact that many thousands of years ago individuals were still drinking coffee in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East.