Coffee, the instant pick me up.
People all over the world indulge in coffee: egg coffee, made with cheese and egg in Vietnam, Finnish coffee made with chunks of cheese at the bottom of the cup, French café au lait and of course, Turkish coffee, not to mention cappuccino, latte or espresso that almost everyone worldwide is familiar with. Indeed, coffee is a drink that many of us cannot do without; in many countries, it is drunk with breakfast, as a mid-morning pick-me-up and after dinner as well. Coffee is something that is in our lives, whether we drink it black, with milk, hot or cold.
As for the history of how the first cup of coffee was created, there is no really reliable source. The most popular story is that a goatherd in Ethiopia noticed that the goats he was tending became very excited after eating the beans from a certain plant. He took these beans to a local monastery where they found that the beans had a stimulating effect, helping the monks stay awake for late-night prayers. According to another version of the discovery of coffee, a certain Sheikh Omar was exiled from Mocha in Yemen. On the verge of starvation he resorted to chewing some berries from a nearby bush. Finding them very bitter, he tried roasting them. They were not much improved by this process, so he then tried boiling them. The resulting liquid gave him energy and helped to keep him alive.
The first records of coffee drinking state that in the 15th century coffee was being consumed in Sufi monasteries near Mocha, Yemen. By the 16th century, coffee had reached Persia and Turkey, as well as North Africa. However, coffee spread to Europe not from this region, but via India; an individual known as Baba Budan smuggled coffee from Yemen to Mysore. The beverage spread from here to Italy and the rest of Europe and the Americas.
In 1583 the German physician Leonhard Rauwolf described coffee as follows, “A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach.” But coffee soon became popular, not as a medicine, but as a refreshing drink. When coffee first appeared in Italy in the 17th century some people called it an “invention of Satan,” put off by its bitter taste. Indeed, there was so much controversy that the Pope got involved. Pope Clement VIII decided that he should taste this beverage and see what all the fuss was about. He liked it so much that he gave it the papal seal of approval.
By the 17th century, coffee houses had sprung up in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe as well. But these European coffeehouses were not like the establishments that we visit today to get our daily latte or cappuccino. The 17th and 18th century coffeehouses were places where people (generally men) met to drink coffee and discuss the latest news and events. Here the conversation usually revolved around politics and current events, as well as fashion, scandals and the latest gossip. In these coffeehouses, philosophy and science were also discussed. As a result, coffeehouses played an important role in the Enlightenment and the spread of new ideas. Indeed, the first coffeehouses to be established in Britain, in Oxford, were known as “penny universities.” Anyone could enter the coffeehouse if they paid a fee of a penny. Rank and status were not important in coffeehouses, and anyone could sit at a table with another person and engage them in conversation. As a result, lively conversations of a truly democratic nature took place, and an alternative learning institution was developed.
It is for this very reason that coffeehouses were banned in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century and viewed with great suspicion elsewhere; the lively debates and political discussions that took place in them were seen as a threat. Coffeehouses were perceived as places where revolutionary ideas were discussed and thus were thought to be dangerous breeding grounds of unrest. Coffeehouses were also popular in the Americas, but it was not until the Boston Tea Party when British tea was dumped into the water in protest of taxation without representation that coffee started to eclipse tea as the favorite Yankee drink. Later, limitations on importing tea during the War of 1812, as it was difficult to bring the tea safely to American ports, led to coffee becoming even more popular.
Source Daily Sabah
