The History of Coffee

Over-excited goats, religious euphoria, quickie divorces, pirates and a dangerous liaison

Coffee trees occur naturally in what is now Ethiopia and a rather charming story from this area tells us how the drink was first discovered. At some point in time around 800 A.D. a goatherd called Kaldi noticed his goats eating the cherry red coffee berries and subsequently dancing happily from one shrub to another. The goatherd tried the beans for himself and discovered the caffeine buzz that this early form of Ecstasy produced. A monk noticed Kaldi's cheerful frolicking and tried the beans out on the brothers, to find that the following night they were not only wakeful but also filled with “divine” inspiration.

Apparently other early Africans were in the habit of making wine from the beans, but coffee didn't turn into a hot drink until it reached Arabia. It was in Arabia around 1000 A.D. roasted beans were first brewed and by the 13th century religious Muslims were drinking coffee in order to keep awake during long periods of prayer, and also to fuel themselves for dervish dancing. From that time, wherever Islam ruled coffee followed. Turkey became a major coffee importer and at one time Turkish law permitted a wife to divorce her husband for failing to keep the family coffeepot filled! The Arabians managed to keep the secret of coffee cultivation to themselves by parching or boiling the beans that they exported, which spoiled the beans for cultivation in other countries. However, a canny smuggler called Baba Budan strapped a few fertile seeds to his belly and smuggled them out into the wider world.

In 1615, a Venetian merchant introduced coffee to Europe, but little happened for a year. After this, the Dutch managed to obtain a smuggled coffee plant, which they took to Java for cultivation. Coffee drinking became popular in Europe, so much so that in Prussia that King Frederick the Great banned it because it was affecting the sale of beer. A Dutch merchant sent Louis XIV a coffee tree for the Paris Botanical Garden, and several years later an enterprising French naval officer called Gabriel Mathiew de Clieu asked for a few clippings from the King's tree. Permission was denied to the young sailor but before he left on his next voyage he climbed over the wall of the gardens in the dead of night and smuggled a small plant out of the hothouse.

On his voyage to Martinique, a jealous passenger tried to take the small bush from de Clieu and in a rage, this man managed to tear off a branch. This might have been the end of the story because along the way, pirates attacked the ship, but the French successfully fought them off, then a storm almost sank it. When the weather improved, the ship slowed to the extent that drinking water had to be rationed, but the determined De Clieu gave half his water allowance to his precious plant. Eventually the tiny bush was planted and kept under armed guard, and a mere 50 years after its struggle for survival, approximately 18 million bushes were thriving in the French Caribbean colonies.

In 1727, the Emperor of Brazil decided that he wanted to grow coffee but he needed to find a resourceful rascal to obtain the requisite beans for him. He found just such a person in the shape of Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta, who he then dispatched to French Guiana, ostensibly to mediate over a border dispute. The Colonel could see no way of taking seeds or cuttings from the heavily guarded growing areas, so he resorted to using his charms on the Governor's wife. The dashing young Colonel obviously succeeded, because in a result worthy of a story by Ian Fleming, at a state farewell dinner this romantic lady presented him with a bouquet of local flowers - among which were coffee seedlings! From these seedlings, the huge Brazilian crops came into being, and this turned coffee from a rich person's treat into a drink for everyone.