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Legend has it that coffee was discovered by a goat
herder named Kaldi in the high plateaus of Ethiopia. While his herd was feeding in a new loacation, Kaldi observed his goats nibbling on bright red berries. He sat and watched in amazement as the goats began to dance with glee. Kaldi gathered some of the berries and ate them and was suddenly filled with energy and alertness. Exited about his find, he took some berries to the village Holy man Bilal. Bilal proclaimed the berries evil and threw them in the fire to cleanse them. The beans began to roast and the aroma enticed the two to rake the beans from the burning embers. Bilal, still believing the beans to be evil, crushed them and purified them in boiling holy water. The two drank the first cup of coffee. Today, coffee continues to grow wild in Ethiopia.
Through trade, dating back as far as 800 B.C. and perhaps during
the Ethiopian occupation of Yemen in the early sixth century, coffee found
its way across the Red Sea to be cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula.
Initially, coffee was used as a medicine and as a beverage associated
with religious ceremonies. From the holy cities of Mecca and Medina at
the center of the Islamic world, the use of coffee spread to Egypt, Persia,
and Syria. During periods of Muslim expansion between the eleventh and
sixteenth centuries, coffee appeared in Turkey, the Balkan states, Spain,
and North Africa. Turkish bridegrooms were required to promise coffee for
their wives-to-be; failure to provide this necessity of life could have
resulted in divorce.
By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this delightful and compelling
beverage--this drink of Islam--was enjoyed at coffee houses throughout
the Middle East and in southern Europe. An institution had been born.
Despite efforts by early producers to control their wonderful commodity,
coffee was smuggled to India. From there, the Dutch began cultivating Coffea
arabica in Java on the Indonesian archipelago. And, in the eighteenth
century, the French were transporting coffee trees to the Caribbean.
Today, coffee is grown on plantations and estates throughout the tropical
regions of the world, and it is enjoyed as a beverage by coffee lovers
worldwide. Few beverages offer such a universal appeal as coffee.
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