History of Coffee
Coffee's history spans as far back as the 9th century.
The word coffee entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè, via Turkish kahve, from Arabic qahwa, of uncertain etymology, which means "coffee" as well as "wine". Its initial origin is not known. There are many legendary accounts of the origin of the drink. One possible actual origin is the Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where the plant originated (its name there is bunn or bunna).
The word coffee entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè, via Turkish kahve, from Arabic qahwa, of uncertain etymology, which means "coffee" as well as "wine". Its initial origin is not known. There are many legendary accounts of the origin of the drink. One possible actual origin is the Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where the plant originated (its name there is bunn or bunna).
Origins in Ethiopia
The coffee tree, Coffea arabica is a flowering evergreen shrub indigenous to Ethiopia in northeast Africa. Its related species C. liberica and C. robusta were discovered growing wild in other regions of Africa.
One legendary account of the discovery of coffee involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic named Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia he observed goats of unusual vitality and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same effect. A similar myth attributes the discovery to an Ethiopian goatherder named Kaldi.
In Ethiopia, coffee beans were initially simply eaten, and not widely brewed as a drink. Coffee beans were consumed by monks to stay awake during prayers.
Coffee in the Arab world
A coffee-house in Palestine, circa 1900.Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean.
The earliest mention of coffee may be a reference to Bunchum in the works of the 9th century CE physician Razi, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.
The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled "Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa". He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Its usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular amung Sufis. Al-Jaziri's manuscript work is of considerable interest with regards to the history of coffee in Europe as well. A copy reached the French royal library, where it was translated in part by Antoine Galland as De l'origine et du progrès du Cafe. The translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.
The 19th-century orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy edited the first two chapters of al-Jaziri's manuscript and included it in the second edition of his Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826, 3 vols.). Galland's 1699 work was recently reissued (Paris: Editions La Bibliothque, 1992).
Consumption of coffee was outlawed in Mecca in 1511, and in Cairo in 1532, but in the face of the drink's immense popularity, the decree was later rescinded. In 1554, the first coffeehouse in Istanbul opened.
Coffee in Italy
Historic sources indicate that Italy was the first European location coffee was imported to. The active trade between Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt and the East brought Muslim goods including coffee to this leading European port. Venetian merchants discovered the taste of coffee and decided to introduce it to Venetian rich, charging them a considerable amount of money for it.
Coffee in England
Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century, according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account [citation needed]. The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford by a man named either Jacob or Jacobs, a Turkish Jew, in 1650. The first coffeehouse in London was opened two years later in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the Ragusan servant of a trader in Turkish goods named Daniel Edwards, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffeehouse spread rapidly in Europe and America after that. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.
Women were not allowed in coffeehouses, and in London, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" complained:
"…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age. "
Coffee in France
Antoine Galland (1646-1715) in his aforementioned translation, described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate, "We are indebted to these great (Arab) physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis 14th, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Mr Thevenot used the beans he brought for his own consumption and gave some to his friends, one of whom was Monsieur de la Croix. However, the major spread of this beverage in Paris came after 1669. In that year Paris received Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Muhammed IV, who, with his entourage, brought a considerable quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they give their French and European guests coffee to drink, but also they donated some beans to the royal court. During his stay, between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinkin coffee among Parisians.
Coffee in the Rest of the World
Legend has it that the first coffeehouse opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, with supplies from the spoils obtained from the defeated Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki, opened the first coffee house in Vienna and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee (until recently, this was celebrated in Viennese coffeehouses by hanging of picture of Kulczycki in the window). Another possibility is that the first coffeehouses were opened in Krakow in the 16th or 17th century because of close trade ties with the East, most notably the Turks.
The introduction of coffee to the Americas is attributed to France through its colonisation of many parts of the continent, starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where first French coffee plantations were founded. The first coffee plantation in the New World was established in Brazil in 1727 when Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta smuggled seeds from the French Guiana. By the 1800's Brazil’s harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to an everyday elixir, a drink for the people. Brazil, which like most other countries cultivates coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for its viability until abolition in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48).
For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries Brazil was the biggest producer of and a virtual monopolist in the trade, until a policy of maintaining high prices opened opportunities to other nations, like Colombia, Guatemala and Indonesia.
The coffee tree, Coffea arabica is a flowering evergreen shrub indigenous to Ethiopia in northeast Africa. Its related species C. liberica and C. robusta were discovered growing wild in other regions of Africa.
One legendary account of the discovery of coffee involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic named Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia he observed goats of unusual vitality and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same effect. A similar myth attributes the discovery to an Ethiopian goatherder named Kaldi.
In Ethiopia, coffee beans were initially simply eaten, and not widely brewed as a drink. Coffee beans were consumed by monks to stay awake during prayers.
Coffee in the Arab world
A coffee-house in Palestine, circa 1900.Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean.
The earliest mention of coffee may be a reference to Bunchum in the works of the 9th century CE physician Razi, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.
The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled "Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa". He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Its usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular amung Sufis. Al-Jaziri's manuscript work is of considerable interest with regards to the history of coffee in Europe as well. A copy reached the French royal library, where it was translated in part by Antoine Galland as De l'origine et du progrès du Cafe. The translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.
The 19th-century orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy edited the first two chapters of al-Jaziri's manuscript and included it in the second edition of his Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826, 3 vols.). Galland's 1699 work was recently reissued (Paris: Editions La Bibliothque, 1992).
Consumption of coffee was outlawed in Mecca in 1511, and in Cairo in 1532, but in the face of the drink's immense popularity, the decree was later rescinded. In 1554, the first coffeehouse in Istanbul opened.
Coffee in Italy
Historic sources indicate that Italy was the first European location coffee was imported to. The active trade between Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt and the East brought Muslim goods including coffee to this leading European port. Venetian merchants discovered the taste of coffee and decided to introduce it to Venetian rich, charging them a considerable amount of money for it.
Coffee in England
Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century, according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account [citation needed]. The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford by a man named either Jacob or Jacobs, a Turkish Jew, in 1650. The first coffeehouse in London was opened two years later in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the Ragusan servant of a trader in Turkish goods named Daniel Edwards, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffeehouse spread rapidly in Europe and America after that. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.
Women were not allowed in coffeehouses, and in London, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" complained:
"…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age. "
Coffee in France
Antoine Galland (1646-1715) in his aforementioned translation, described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate, "We are indebted to these great (Arab) physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis 14th, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Mr Thevenot used the beans he brought for his own consumption and gave some to his friends, one of whom was Monsieur de la Croix. However, the major spread of this beverage in Paris came after 1669. In that year Paris received Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Muhammed IV, who, with his entourage, brought a considerable quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they give their French and European guests coffee to drink, but also they donated some beans to the royal court. During his stay, between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinkin coffee among Parisians.
Coffee in the Rest of the World
Legend has it that the first coffeehouse opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, with supplies from the spoils obtained from the defeated Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki, opened the first coffee house in Vienna and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee (until recently, this was celebrated in Viennese coffeehouses by hanging of picture of Kulczycki in the window). Another possibility is that the first coffeehouses were opened in Krakow in the 16th or 17th century because of close trade ties with the East, most notably the Turks.
The introduction of coffee to the Americas is attributed to France through its colonisation of many parts of the continent, starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where first French coffee plantations were founded. The first coffee plantation in the New World was established in Brazil in 1727 when Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta smuggled seeds from the French Guiana. By the 1800's Brazil’s harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to an everyday elixir, a drink for the people. Brazil, which like most other countries cultivates coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for its viability until abolition in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48).
For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries Brazil was the biggest producer of and a virtual monopolist in the trade, until a policy of maintaining high prices opened opportunities to other nations, like Colombia, Guatemala and Indonesia.
posted by Helen @ 6:18 AM
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