Legend has it that Kaldi found his goats eating bright red
berries from a dark-leafed shrub. Usually calm and responsible,
the goats began dancing, frolicking and singing. Kaldi shared
his discovery with local monks who made a drink by boiling
the berries. After drinking the mixture, the monks realized that they
now had the stamina to pray for hours on end. Later, a
particularly curious monk, who liked the sweet aroma of a
burning coffee branch, pulled the charred berries from the
fire, ground them down and prepared a black beverage. This
liquid was the first coffee.
Coffee found its way across the Red Sea to the
Arabian Peninsula. By the thirteenth century, coffee’s
medicinal and religious uses became well known from the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina to Egypt, Persia and Syria. Here
also is where coffee earned its reputation as an “eye opener,”
as it reportedly kept Muslims awake during long prayer
ceremonies. During the Muslim expansion
coffee appeared in Turkey, Spain and North Africa.
Coffee was eventually
smuggled to India and from there to the Dutch. They began
cultivating
Coffea in Java on the Indonesian archipelago. And by the 18th
century, the French were transporting coffee trees to
the Caribbean.
Coffee was introduced in America around the mid-17th
century, but did not become our signature drink until
the time of the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
