The Wine of Araby
by Bob Brooke

Coffee readies people for their day, acts as a social mediator, and soothes the soul. No wonder much of the world drinks it. But as to how and when coffee came to be discovered, no one seems to know for sure. Through adventure and misadventure, wartime and peacetime, it has become one of the most popular drinks on Earth.

Topping the list of legends about the origin of coffee is the story of a goat herder named Kaldi who realized that his goats got a buzz after earing the berries of a particular bush. Kaldi told the abbot of the local monastery about this, and the abbot made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayer. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.

Coffee’s Beginnings in Arabia
Historians believe that the cultivation and trade of coffee began on the Arabian Peninsula. By the 15th century, coffee was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia and by the 16th century it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. The word coffee entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, borrowed in turn from the Arabic qahwah.

Followers of Islam originally consumed coffee as part of their religious practices. It helped them fast in the day and stay awake at night, during the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. And coffee became associated with Muhammad's birthday.

Ethiopians first cultivated coffee, then later introduced it to other countries. Somali merchants from Zeila and Berbera first exported coffee out of Ethiopia to Yemen. Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee in 1454. He found that it drove away fatigue and lethargy and brought vigor to those who drank it. In the 15th century, Sufi monasteries in Yemen employed coffee as an aid to concentration during prayers.

In 1511, conservative, orthodox imams at a theological court in Mecca forbade coffee drinking for its stimulating effect. With thousands of pilgrims visiting the holy city of Mecca each year from all over the world, knowledge of this “wine of Araby” began to spread. The same type of ban occurred in Cairo in 1532. During the rest of the 16th century, bans reached the rest of the Middle East. But these bans were difficult to enforce.

Early practitioners of Islamic medicine and science fought against the notion that the effect of coffee was like that of hashish or alcohol, and instead argued the benefits of the drink, which would stimulate the mind while protecting against the allure of alcohol and hashish. Coffeehouses in Mecca, Yemen, and Cairo began to explode in popularity, and they became centers of public life within the sprawling cities of the Islamic Empires. Coffee then became an regular part of Islamic culture.

Suleiman I tried to prevent the spread of coffee by imposing taxes in an attempt to prevent both bureaucrats and those who were unemployed from consuming coffee. Further attempts occurred during both the reigns of Sultan Selim II in 1567 as well as Sultan Murad III in 1583 whenever those of more modest means began to drink coffee which included professions ranging from craftsmen to shopkeepers to local soldiers.

The bans and other preventative measures came from the idea that like alcohol, coffee had an effect on cognition, although it was different and milder. As with alcohol, drinking coffee in public places was frowned upon.

Within the Ottoman Empire, shops brewed coffee using the traditional method of roasting and crushing coffee beans in mortars. Muslims from all over frequented coffeehouses in Mecca as after prayers at mosques, as well as those who came afar to trade and sell, or simple travelers making their way through.

Coffee Travels to Europe
European travelers to the Near East brought back stories of an unusual dark black beverage. Turkish soldiers first introduced coffee to Europe in Hungary when they invaded it at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Within a year, coffee had reached Vienna by the same Turks who fought the Europeans at the Siege of Vienna in 1529.

From the Middle East and Vienna, coffee drinking spread to Italy in the second half of the 16th century through commercial Mediterranean trade routes .In 1580 the Venetian botanist and physician Prospero Alpini imported coffee into the Republic of Venice from Egypt, and soon coffee shops started opening one by one when coffee spread and became the drink of the intellectuals, of social gatherings, even of lovers as plates of chocolate and coffee were considered a romantic gift

Some people reacted to this new beverage with suspicion or fear, calling it the “bitter invention of Satan.” The local clergy condemned coffee when it came to Venice in 1615. Pope Clement VIII was asked to intervene. He decided to taste the beverage for himself before making a decision, and found the drink so satisfying that he gave it papal approval. The first European coffee house apart from those in the Ottoman Empire and in Malta was opened in Venice in 1645.

During this period, many people believed coffee had medicinal properties. Renowned and eminent physicians often recommended coffee for medicinal purposes and some prescribed it as a cure for nervous disorders.

Plantations Around the World
As demand for the beverage continued to spread, there was fierce competition to cultivate coffee outside of Arabia. Pieter van den Broecke, a Dutch merchant, obtained some of the closely guarded coffee bushes from Mocha, Yemen, in 1616. He took them back to Amsterdam and found a home for them in the Botanical gardens, where they began to thrive.

In 1658, the Dutch began coffee cultivation in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and later in southern India but that failed. They abandoned this cultivation to focus on their Javanese plantations where they were successful with their efforts in Batavia, on the island of Java in what’s now Indonesia. The plants thrived and soon the Dutch had a productive and growing trade in coffee. They then expanded the cultivation of coffee trees to the islands of Sumatra and Celebes.

Coffee in Brazil
Brazilian coffee owes its existence to Francisco de Mello Palheta, who the emperor sent to French Guiana to get coffee seedlings. The French were not willing to share, but the French Governor's wife, captivated by his good looks, gave him a large bouquet of flowers before he left— buried inside were enough coffee seeds to begin what is today a billion-dollar industry.

By 1852, Brazil had become the largest producer of coffee in the world, which it continues to the present day. It dominated world production, exporting more coffee than the rest of the world combined, from 1850 to 1950. The period since 1950 saw the widening of the playing field due to the emergence of several other major producers, notably Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and, most recently, Vietnam, which overtook Colombia and became the second-largest producer in 1999 and reached 15 percent market share by 2011.

Coming to the Americas
In 1714, the Mayor of Amsterdam presented a gift of a young coffee plant to King Louis XIV of France. The King ordered it to be planted in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. In 1723, a young naval officer, Gabriel de Clieu obtained a seedling from the King's plant. Despite a challenging voyage—complete with horrendous weather, a saboteur who tried to destroy the seedling, and a pirate attack—he managed to transport it safely to Martinique.

Once planted, the seedling not only thrived, but it’s credited with the spread of over 18 million coffee trees on the island of Martinique in the next 50 years. Even more incredible is that this seedling was the parent of all coffee trees throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America.

In the mid-17th century, ships brought coffee from Martinique to New Amsterdam, later called New York by the British. And though coffee houses rapidly began to appear, people continued to favor tea until 1773 when the colonists revolted against a heavy tax on tea imposed by King George III at the Boston Tea Party.

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