The Story of Coffee

The Story of Coffee

My name is Coco (I have progressive parents) and I am a coffee bean. I want to tell you all about coffee, from the past when it was first discovered, right up to the present day.

Coffee drinking is traditionally supposed to have started about fourteen hundred years ago (round about 600AD) in Ethiopia, which is in Africa. There was this young lad, who was employed as a goatherd, looking after a load of goats. He was a bit miffed because the goats kept him up all night, every night. Instead of settling down to sleep, they were skittish, and the poor lad was missing out on his slumbers. Despite only being employed as a goatherd, this young lad, whose name has been forgotten down the centuries, let's call him Costa for clarity, was actually quite bright. Costa was also very observant, and he realised that the goats only got frisky after they had eaten their fill of some red berries on several coffee bushes which were dotted around the place.

Being a quick-witted lad, Costa decided to try out these berries for himself, so he dropped some into a gourd of hot water and sipped the resultant brew. He discovered to his surprise, that he too was not able to sleep, but he wasn't tired, in fact he was very alert and watchful. Costa thought there might be a use for this concoction, so he popped along to the local Monastery and had a word with the man in charge there. The Abbot tried out Costa's coffee brew, and he too thought that it held possibilities. The Abbot used to get awfully miffed because half the monks would doze off during early morning prayers and the other half were only kept awake by their snores, but once he started doling out a cup of coffee to each one, they stayed awake and paid full attention to their devotions.

Naturally news of this potent beverage soon got around and by 1000AD coffee beans were brewed quite openly in East Africa, and because of the slave trade, the custom also passed into the Yemen. Come 1300AD, the Muslims were enjoying their cups of coffee in coffee houses in their holy town of Mecca. Coffee drinking became quite a social habit, with the Muslims chatting about the issues of the day, moaning about the Crusades and making the Arab region the sole basis for the coffee industry.

They would only let the infertile roasted beans be exported to traders in Europe and Asia, and in this way they controlled the coffee industry as a monopoly.

It was a resourceful Indian pilgrim who made the break through in the 1600‘s. It is alleged that he smuggled out either some fertile coffee beans or possibly a whole plant, although the imagination does boggle somewhat as to where about his person he could have hidden that, and coffee growing became a very important part of the Indian economy. The Dutch at this time had several Southeast Asian colonies, they too got their hands on a couple of plants and they were very successful in getting coffee plantations started in these colonies.

At first there was some dissention in Christian countries about a "heathen" drink being introduced to God fearing folk. However Pope Clement VIII "baptised" the drink,