The History Of Coffee - Video

Since the Boston Tea Party, Americans have been crazy for coffee, choosing it as their caffeine fix. But obviously that’s not the origin of java. Naturally, the history of coffee goes back much earlier.

A video clip that goes back to the first cup of coffee prepared and drunk, and afterwards it tracks the expansion of coffee worldwide. We all know the Ethiopian tale which claims the goat herder Kaldi found the potential of the coffee beans. But what happened afterwards?

So get out your Chemex, grind some beans, boil some water, and sit down to watch this history of coffee with a cup of your own.

Full story - the history of coffee

According to the legend, the invigorating benefits of the coffee bean were first uncovered by a goat herdsman called Kaldi, that lived on the Ethiopian plateau throughout the 9th century.

One day Kaldi discovered that after some of his heard had foraged on the bright red cherry of the coffee plant they appeared to have limitless power, certainly more than the rest of his animals. As the tale goes, this left them too invigorated to fall asleep in the evening, as their bundles of power had them bounding all over the place.

A short history

After Kaldi observed how " energetic" his goats became after consuming the coffee berries, he went to the local monastery to let the monks know. A monk produced a mixture from the berries and managed to keep up much later praying.

News of this brand-new mixture spread right into Egypt and into the Arabian peninsula, where coffee traveled east and west, finally landing in southeast Asia and the Americas. And it's been prominent ever since.

But if we are to consider facts only, and not tales, the oldest validated proof of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the early 15th century, in the Sufi abbeys of Yemen, spreading out soon to Mecca and Medina. By the 16th century, it had actually reached the remainder of the Middle East, South India (Karnataka), Persia, Turkey, the Horn of Africa, and northern Africa. Coffee after that spread to the Balkans, Italy, and to the rest of Europe, in addition to Southeast Asia and in spite of the restrictions imposed throughout the 15th century by religious leaders in Mecca and Cairo, and later by the Catholic Church.

Etymology

It turns out the word "coffee" originate from Arabic. The word went into the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, consequently borrowed from the Arabic qahwah.

There is an even more fascinating theory of the beginning of the word, which you can read on Wikipedia here.

Modern Coffee Background

The modern-day times race for convenience and efficiency recognized that people are "losing" too much time preparing coffee. This is how instant coffee was developed. David Strang, a New Zealander created it in 1889. Freeze-dried coffee was created in 1938.

Decaffeinated coffee was developed by Ludwig Roselius in 1903, filling a requirement for individuals who are sensitive to high levels of caffeine.

The coffee filter, the basis of one of the most preferred coffee brewing method, the drip coffee, was invented by Melitta Bentz in 1908.

Achille Gaggia invented the modern-day coffee device in 1946. The initial pump-driven espresso machine was made in 1960.

Today coffee is still one of the world's most favored beverages. Brazil is still the globe's biggest producer of coffee.