History of Coffee

(This is article no. 3 of 4 in a my series about coffee.)

"No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness."

(Sheikh Abd-al-Kadir)

I. Coffee, Medicine or Religious Beverage?

Originally coffee was rare, and the Arabs considered it a religious beverage. Medical properties were also ascribed to it. Later that changed and it has been seen as a vice, damaging the health. Many health freaks still today condemn it as harmful, while science gradually unfolds one health benefit after another. I would say that coffee, used wisely, is one of the major means to promote health and prevent disease. (See my previous article, What Coffee does to You.)

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya El Razi, or Rhazes (865–925), one of the greatest physicians of all times, included "bunchum" in his medical encyclopaedia with medical remedies. He wrote: "bunchum is hot and dry and very good for the stomach." Bunchum is probably coffee, although no absolute certainty exists.

The famous Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, or Avicenna (980-1037), also mentioned "bunchum" as an excellent medicine. It "fortifies the members, cleans the skin, dries up the humidities that are under it, and gives an excellent smell to all the body."

In 1450, Sheik Gemaleddin, a dervish, is said to have cured his apparently incurable ailments with coffee.

The Abd-al-Kadir manuscript from 1587 (996 A.H), is the earliest known relation of the origin of coffee. It was written by Abd-al-Kadir ibn Mohammed al Ansari al Jazari al Hanbali, of whom very little is known. He refers to Shihab-ad-Din Ahmad ibn Abd-al-Ghafar al Maliki, who supposedly lived about one century earlier. Apart from describing the beans and the history of their use, this text relates the schism on how coffee should relate to religion. From having been a religious beverage amongst the Sufis, it suddenly became questionable if coffee were in accordance with Islamic law at all.

During the 17th century in Constantinople you could be executed for drinking it. The next step was to legalise it again, and tax it.

In Europe, when coffee was new, some priests wanted to forbid it, because it was a Muslim drink. The pope, Clement VIII (1535–1605), is reported to have tasted it, and said:

"This Satan's drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptising it, and making it a Christian beverage."

There have been various other reactions in the West too, but more based on financial or medical reasons than on religion.

It has been, and still is, to some extent uncertain if the "bunn" or "bunchum" of early writers is indeed coffee. It is, however, very likely [in Arabic, coffee berry is called "bun", while ready-to-drink coffee is "qahwa"]. However, when it is claimed that the "nepenthe" of Homer, something Helen brought from Egypt, would be coffee mixed with wine [Pierre Delia Valle, De Constantinople à Bombay, Lettres. 1615], we tread very uncertain grounds. There are also those finding references in the Bible, even claiming that Esau sold his birthright for coffee. But then we are far from realistic speculation.

II. Beginning & Spread

Legend tells us about Kaldi, a goat shepherd in the mountains of Ethiopia about 1500 years ago [1000-1200 years ago, according to some sources]. He discovered that his goats were unusually lively when they had eaten red berries from a shrub growing there. That would have been the discovery of coffee, and the habit of drinking it rapidly spread to Yemen and Egypt. This is a legend, and we don't know for sure that coffee stems from Ethiopia. We know, however, that Yemen is the first place for which the use of coffee is documented. Mocha, previously the port of Sana in Yemen, where coffee was traded from the 15th to the 17th century, gave us the name "mocha" for flavours mixing coffee and chocolate. Genuine Mocha Sanani beans have a natural touch of chocolate in their flavour. The word "coffee" is - probably – derived from "Kaffa", a place, a kingdom, in Ethiopia. This is not undisputed; various Arabic words have also been suggested as the origin: quowah [strength], qahwa [coffee], and others.

Then there is the legend of Omar, the dervish, who in the year 1258 AD in Ousab would have discovered coffee by a coincidence, when he and his followers had nothing to eat or drink. They also discovered its medical properties. There are several versions of that story in circulation.

In Yemen, amongst the Sufis, roasting and brewing were introduced. When this happened is unclear. Some sources say the 13th century, others say it was later: the 15th century, while some date it as early as about the year 1000. Originally, however, leaves and berries were boiled as they were, and eaten. They could also be crushed, mixed with fat, and made to foodballs.

From the Arabs, the habit of coffee-drinking was spread over the Muslim world: North Africa, the Middle East, India, Indonesia, and Turkey

To protect the trade, coffee beans were made infertile before export. According to legend, Baba Budan, an Indian pilgrim broke this monopoly by smuggling with himself fertile beans from Mecca to Mysore in India, thus preparing the way for the cultivation of coffee outside Arabia and Africa. In 1615, coffee came to Europe with a Venetian merchant, who found it in Turkey. The Dutch were the first Europeans who tried to cultivate it. First in the Netherlands already in 1616; it was just one or a few plants - then a real coffee-producing plantation in the Netherlands East Indies, on the island of Java, in 1696.

The first European writing about coffee was Alpinus (1553–1617) from Padua, in his "The Plants of Egypt". He wrote:

“I have seen this tree at Cairo, it being the same tree that produces the fruit, so common in Egypt, to which they give the name bon or ban. The Arabians and the Egyptians make a sort of decoction of it, which they drink instead of wine; and it is sold in all their public houses, as wine is with us. They call this drink caova. The fruit of which they make it comes from "Arabia the Happy," [Yemen] and the tree that I saw looks like a spindle tree, but the leaves are thicker, tougher, and greener. The tree is never without leaves.”

In France, the King, Louis XIV, was given a coffee tree in 1714. But when Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu asked for clippings, with the view of establishing a coffee plantation on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, the king said no. Not inclined to accept that, de Clieu stole a sprout and brought it to Martinique. On the way a jealous passenger stole a branch from de Clieu. Other problems occurred during the journey: pirates, a violent storm, and water shortage. But to Martinique he came - with his sprout, from which allegedly Latin America's coffee trees stem.

Brazil wanted to enter the coffee business, and Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta was commissioned to get beans from a country possessing coffee trees. He managed to manipulate the wife of the Governor of French Guiana to give him seedlings, thereby laying the ground for Brazil as a superpower of coffee production. A position it still holds.

My Series about Coffee:

1. What Coffee does to You

2. Coffee: Plants & the Function of Caffeine

3. History of Coffee

4. Do You Drink Much Coffee? I Bet You Can't Beat These Enthusiasts!

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