THE ESSENCE OF COFFEE
SCAA
Trainer’s Guide to Specialty Coffee
Myth, History, Cultivation through
Export
COFFEE BASICS:
The Myth and History of Specialty Coffee
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Myth
History
Migration from East to West
Spread of the Coffee House
 In Europe
 In America
Myth
The story of coffee
is steeped in Myth,
intrigue, adventure,
and peril.
This story begins in myth. The first of
these concerns an Abyssinian (Ethiopian)
goat herder named Kaldi.
Kaldi noticed his goats dancing and
prancing after they ate a strange red
berry.
Not to be left out of the fun, Kaldi too
ate the berry and soon was dancing
with his herd.
A wandering Abbot saw Kaldi and
asked the goat herder about this
strange exuberance of man and beast.
Believing that these berries might help
his fellow monks remain awake during
prayers, the Abbott returned to his
group with berries in hand.
Yet another myth concerns the dervish,
Omar. Legend has it that Omar was exiled by
his enemies and condemned to die of
starvation in the Yemenite desert.
One night he was awakened by a strange
apparition that led him to a coffee tree.
Omar gathered the tree’s berries, boiled
them, and when he could not eat the seeds,
he drank the resulting brew.
Filled with a new vitality, Omar offered
this strange beverage to some sick
people that he encountered.
Their recovery compelled Omar to
return to the Port of Mocha, in Yemen,
with these magical berries.
Due to their restorative powers, coffee
berries became regarded as a gift from
God.
Other legends have tied coffee to such
figures as Helen of Troy who may have
brought it from Sparta to Troy as the
“wondrous drink” of which Homer writes.
History
Botanists believe that coffee originated
in Ethiopia and it is from here that
coffee began its spread throughout the
world.
As illustrated in some of the myths and
legends, coffee’s use began as a food rather
than as a beverage.
It is thought that African tribes would crush
the ripe coffee berries and mix this fruit with
animal fat to prepare a potent and
invigorating food.
They would eat this mixture for nourishment
and to arouse aggression in preparation for
war.
The first coffee beverage was like a
wine. The juice from fermented coffee
berries was mixed with cold water to
make an enticing beverage.
It was not until the Arabs began to boil
the raw coffee beans (or seeds) that
coffee became a hot drink.
While it is generally believed that coffee
originated in Ethiopia, coffee was first
cultivated in monastery gardens in
neighboring Arabia (Yemen) at least 1000
years ago.
It is believed that Arab traders first brought
coffee out of Ethiopia across the Gulf of Aden
and into Yemen through the port of Mocha.
So much coffee was shipped through this port
that “Mocha” became synonymous with
coffee.
Like the Africans, the Arabians first
made wine from the pulp of the
fermented coffee berries.
“Qahwah” (Ka-wa), the Arabic word for
wine was first used to describe coffee.
Since wine was forbidden by Islamic
law, coffee was used to replace it.
Offered primarily in religious
ceremonies and as a stimulant
prescribed by doctors, coffee soon
became popular and achieved wider
use.
In order to meet growing demand, the
Arabs developed a system of cultivation
whereby seedling coffee plants were
grown in nurseries.
When the plants
were mature and
sturdy enough,
they were
transplanted to
the foothills
where irrigation
systems watered
them and shade
poplars kept
them protected
from the sun.
The popularization of coffee produced
advancements in preparation.
While the fruit of the coffee berry had
provided the first beverage, soon the
coffee beans were being roasted and
boiled to create a new, yellowish drink.
In about the 13th century, the next
development arose in Turkey.
The roasted coffee bean as pulverized into
powder which was then mixed with water,
sugar, spices (such as cinnamon, cardamom,
and cloves), and then boiled.
The result, which we call Turkish coffee, was
a condensed brew that could be re-heated,
served in tiny, potent portions and consumed
as desired.
The invention of the
Ibrik (an hourglass
shaped boiling pot)
speeded up the
preparation process.
As coffee became more popular and began to
lose its solely medicinal and religious
connections, the first coffee houses opened in
Mecca.
These coffee houses (or “qahveh khaneh” as
they were called) provided a place for people
to gather socially in order to gamble, listen to
music, discuss religious and political issues,
and to drink coffee.
The coffee houses,
which would later
spring up around
the West, were
fashioned after the
original ones in
Mecca,
Constantinople, and
Damascus.
Although religious and political leaders
of the time found coffee houses
somewhat threatening, their efforts to
close them failed.
Coffee was too popular and was the
lesser of other evils—such as wine.
Coffee soon ventured from the coffee
houses to the home where it was often
celebrated through lavish ceremonies
much like the tea ceremonies of Japan.
Migration from East to West
The journey of coffee to the rest of the
world is full of theft and intrigue.
The Arabs so valued their coffee trade
that they prohibited coffee’s removal
from the country in its fertile form.
Indeed, removal was punishable by
death.
However,
with coffee’s
popularity,
its spread
was
inevitable.
Middle Eastern migration
It is believed that religious pilgrims that
journeyed to Mecca may have smuggled the
first coffee to other Middle Eastern countries
such as Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.
Venetian traders may have been the first to
carry the precious cargo out of the East and
into Italy providing coffee with its first leap to
Europe.
Denounced as an evil beverage of the
Muslim infidels, Italian priests declared
coffee to be the work of the Devil.
They wanted it to be banned so as to
prevent those who drank it from falling
into eternal damnation.
Near the end of the 16th century, Pope
Clement VIII (8th) asked that this evil
brew be brought to him.
He was so enthralled by the drink that
he refused to ban it thus sanctioning
coffee’s continued spread throughout
the Christian world.
Although many countries including
France, Italy, and Germany were
competing to introduce the profitable
coffee crop to their various colonies, it
was Holland that first succeeded in this
effort.
In 1616, the Dutch smuggled a coffee
plant out of Yemen and by 1658 had
begun
cultivation
in the
colonies of
Ceylon
and Java.
Soon Amsterdam became a trading
center for coffee grown in the Dutch
colonies.
Coffee cultivation in the colonies was so
successful that “Java” became a
synonym for all coffee.
After several efforts to transport the
coffee plant to France, success was
achieved in 1714 when a plant was sent
from Amsterdam to King Louis XIV
(14th).
This coffee plant was transplanted into
the King’s Garden (The Jardin des
Plantes) in Paris.
From this single plant, most of the
coffee plants grown in the French
colonies, South and Central America,
and the Caribbean were born.
The theft of one of the seedlings from
this coffee plant offers one of the most
romantic of intrigues concerning
coffee’s migration.
It involves
a young
French
naval
officer
serving in
the colony
of Martinique
named
Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu.
Having heard of the great success of the
coffee plant in Java de Clieu believed that he
could bring great fortune and prominence to
France by cultivating the plant in the West
Indies.
When in Paris, de Clieu asked the royal
botanist for a seedling. The botanist had
great success and had earned tremendous
prestige for himself in the 10 years that he
had cultivated the plant in the King’s garden.
Indeed the nobility often traveled to look at
the wonderful hothouse coffee plant and, no
doubt, praised the botanist’s efforts. Not
wanting to lose any of this prestige, the
botanist refused to allow any plants out of
the garden.
de Clieu would not be dissuaded. So, with the
aid of a doctor, de Clieu was able to collect a
gang of masked men to storm the garden
walls and to successfully steal a seedling from
the garden.
Encased in a glass sided wooden frame;
the plant was carefully tended by de
Clieu on the long sea voyage.
Although the voyage was plagued by
pirates and storms, de Clieu maintained
his protective watch.
Indeed, when water became scarce and the
sea captain refused the coffee plant a ration,
de Clieu shared his own precious water with
the plant.
de Clieu’s efforts succeeded and the coffee
plant arrived to Martinique healthy and
flourishing.
Planted, surrounded by thorns, and then
guarded by slaves, this plant thrived.
It is believed that within the next 50
years, there were nearly 19 million
coffee plants on Martinique.
From Martinique, plants were taken to
Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Guadeloupe.
As mentioned
earlier, the Dutch
took coffee to Java.
In turn, they
brought coffee with
them from Java to
Dutch Guyana
(Surinam) in South
America in 1718.
Migration to South
America and surrounding
islands
At this time, the French too were
growing coffee in neighboring French
Guyana.
When a border dispute erupted, a
Brazilian named Francisco de Melo
Palheta (Pie-yeah-ta) was called in to
arbitrate.
As a reward, Palheta received a bag of
coffee seeds and several seedlings from
the French governor’s wife. Thus the
Brazilian coffee industry was born.
By the end of the 18th century, coffee
had become a highly profitable export
crop for Brazil.
Coffee’s further expansion into what are
now its growing regions proceeded in
this manner of colonization.
Migration to the Caribbean basin, Central
America, and Mexico
The British first took coffee to Jamaica
around 1730.
Guatemala received her first taste of the
coffee crop between 1750 and 1760.
It is believed that Don Francisco Xavier
Navarro delivered coffee plants from Cuba to
Costa Rica around 1779.
And that Mexico first acquired the coffee
plant in about 1790.
In 1825 Hawaii received her precious cargo of
seeds from a plantation in Rio de Janeiro.
Migration begins to return to Africa
A small island colony in the southwest
Indian Ocean played a large role in
supporting coffee’s migration around
the world.
This French colony called Bourbon, now
called Reunion, offered the perfect
conditions for cultivating seedlings from
King Louis’s garden.
In fact, cultivation became so important
that in 1723 the colonial government
decreed that every plantation was
required to grow an additional two
hundred coffee trees and that anyone
who destroyed a coffee plant would be
punished by death!
When sugar can became the islands’
preferred crop after islands’ preferred
crop after 1825, Bourbon coffee
seedlings found their way to South and
Central American countries.
These seedlings gave rise to a strain of
arabica coffee known as Bourbon.
Missionaries took this Bourbon strain to
countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Peru, El
Salvador, Mexico, and Kenya.
This global migration of coffee returned to
Africa in 1878 with the introduction of coffee
to British East Africa by British settlers.
By 1900, these settlers had commingled their
crops with that Bourbon coffee strain
originating from King Louis XIV’s (14th)
garden.
Coffee
had found
its way
back
home!
Coffee around the world
This accelerated spread of coffee around the
world as a cash crop has, today, rendered
coffee one of the largest commodities in the
word—2nd in dollar value only to oil!
Today, coffee is grown in over 50
countries.
And it supports the livelihoods of over 20
million people in coffee producing and
consuming nations around the world!