Coffee

First discovered in Ethiopia, coffee became one of the world’s most popular drinks after people in the Middle East and Europe discovered that its consumption made its drinkers more alert and active.

It is impossible to know exactly when humans began to drink coffee. As the French historian Fernand Braudel commented, the plant’s history “may lead us astray. The anecdotal, the picturesque and the unreliable play an enormous part in it.” Stories about coffee’s origins support Braudel’s contention. According to legend humans recognized that coffee could be consumed after an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi watched his animals eating the leaves and berries of a mysterious tree and then become frisky. Curious, Kaldi himself then chewed on the leaves and ate the berries. Although the taste was bitter, Kaldi soon had enormous energy, and so he joined the goats in their frolics. He then went home, told others about what he had eaten, and the word soon spread. When Ethiopians during the sixth century crossed into Yemen, they apparently brought coffee with them. Local Arabs began to consume what they called qahwa (or Qahwah). Among those who became enamored of coffee’s potential was the prophet Mohammed, who recognized that drinking coffee could help him stay awake and thus pray much longer.

The known history of coffee is much briefer. Few reliable references to coffee consumption exist from before 1470, when people were drinking coffee in Aden. Quite possibly the roasting of beans had begun as early as the year 1000, and by 1300 production was substantial in Yemen, where those who drank it appreciated it for the stimulant provided by the caffeine that is naturally provided by the coffee plant. Coffee reached Cairo by 1510 and Mecca by 1511, the year it was first banned there by clerical officials who decried the behavior of those who drank it. Turks in Istanbul were drinking coffee by 1517, and it spread outward into Turkish regions. By 1600 coffee consumption was widespread within territory controlled by Muslims (see Islam).

Europeans witnessed Arabs and Turks consuming coffee in the late 16th century. As the Augsburg physician Leonhard Rauwolf wrote in a book published in 1582, “they have a good drink which they greatly esteem. They call it ‘chaube’: it is nearly as black as ink and helpful against stomach complaints.” Rauwolf described the way that locals consumed coffee in public, often in the morning, and that it was “common among them, so that one finds quite a few who serve it in the bazaar, as well as shopkeepers who sell the berries there.” The Italian traveler Pietro delle Valle also witnessed coffee consumption when he was in Constantinople in 1615. According to him, local Turks drank coffee “in long draughts, not during the meal but afterwards, as a sort of delicacy and to converse in comfort in the company of friends. One hardly sees a gathering where it is not drunk.” He described the mores of coffee drinking itself and the porcelain cups that drinkers used. Drinking coffee could lead to endless discussion, he concluded, “sometimes for a period of seven or eight hours.”

During the early 17th century coffee consumption spread throughout Europe. Pope Clement VIII allegedly tasted coffee after some clerics believed it should be banned, but rather than halting its spread he instead purportedly said that “it would be a pity to let the infidels (Muslims) have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptizing it and making it a truly Christian beverage.” Coffee reached Venice in 1615, Paris in 1643, Marseilles in 1644, Oxford by 1650, London by 1651, and Vienna in 1683. In Paris, where coffee had been provided by the Turkish ambassador Soliman Mutapha Raca, those who drank it soon believed that coffee had medicinal benefits; a medical treatise published in Lyon in 1671 enumerated its properties and thereby gave coffee an additional boost. Over time residents of Paris and other European capitals became hooked on coffee and opened establishments that existed solely for drinking it. These coffeehouses became fixtures of the metropolitan landscape across Europe, and the discussions that began in such businesses became, over time, a vital part of the public life of each city. In London, for example, the coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd attracted merchants and sailors and, as a result, individuals who arranged insurance for voyages; over time the business in the coffeehouse became more important than the coffee itself, and the establishment became Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s most prominent insurance firms. Coffee’s alleged medicinal benefits increased its popularity. By the end of the 17th century, London alone had more than 2,000 coffeehouses.

When Europeans moved beyond the boundaries of their continent in the 17th century, they soon recognized that the climate in other parts of the world was ideal for the production of coffee. Thus the Dutch took coffee to Ceylon in 1658 and to Java in 1699. During the 18th century Europeans planted coffee in the Western Hemisphere. Coffee appeared in Martinique in 1723 and from there spread outward; eventually coffee plantations could be found in the islands of the Caribbean and on the mainland, from Mexico to Brazil. Although coffee is still produced in its original territory, far more comes from the plant’s new homelands, where Europeans brought it to satisfy their desire for what one Vatican official once called “Satan’s latest trap to catch Christian souls.”

Further reading: Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1981); Alan

Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 201-202; Mark Prend-ergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (New York: Basic Books, 1999); Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (New York: Pantheon, 1992).