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Welcome to this new series - all about Coffee! Over the next four issues or so, I will be talking about coffee. This first article is a brief history of coffee and the coffee tree. The next issues will cover storage, blends, buying, making and enjoying coffee. Dotted around each section, you will also find a few short recipes for a good cup of coffee.
Coffee, as a plant or tree, is native to Ethiopia; situated in East Africa and close to the Red Sea, Ethiopia is only across the water from the Arabian peninsula, and as we shall see, the Arabs had a lot to do with popularising coffee. Coffee had been known to exist and was used by Ethiopians from around 500AD. It is said that a shepherd of the Galla tribe noticed Sheep grazing on the coffee berries. Subsequently he noticed a change in their behaviour and so tried them himself. It was from then on known to boost energy, but was only used in berry form for many years. From shortly before the turn of the first millennium Arab traders started to take both berries and plants back to their own countries for cultivation. Coffee first appeared in the literature of the Arabs from around 900AD. Arabs were thought to have started the method of boiling coffee beans. For almost five hundred years the Arabs kept coffee and coffee plants to themselves. In fact coffee became something of a staple food in the Arab culture (it was initially only eaten), and they guarded the secret of their berries and beans very closely. For a long time coffee was used by the Arabs and other cultures as a medicine, the plants generally only being grown in Ethiopia and the Arab peninsula, where the combination of altitude, humidity and heat made an ideal environment for their growth. The first recorded export of coffee from Arab countries took place in the mid to late 15th century when coffee was exported to Turkey. An interesting point here is that even today Turkish law allows a woman to divorce her husband should he fail to provide her with coffee! Over time the carefully guarded Arab coffee became more widely used in Turkey and their strangle hold on the beverage slowly weakened. Italy was the first European country to use coffee, whe it was introduced in the early 17th century by traders. The brew was accepted by the Catholic Church and, with that blessing, rose in popularity. Taking a while to become properly established, the first coffee houses opened in Italy in the early to mid 1600's, moving to France and then to the shores of England in around 1650. They become very popular in England, a cup selling for about a penny. It is also believed that the coffee houses were dubbed "Penny Universities" largely because of the fact that the more scholarly portion of the population frequented them most.
It was only during the latter part of the 17th century that the Dutch were responsible for introducing coffee plantations to Indonesia - Java! The plant is believed to have been smuggled from Mocha, an Arab city. France also exported plants to the Caribbean, (around 1725), and it is thought that this introduction by France provided many of the original plants that are used in the America's today. In fact less than fifty years after coffee plantations were set up on the island of Martinique there were believed to be more than fifteen million trees, all these coming from one plant which was given to the French by the Dutch. It is worth noting that in 1668 coffee overtook beer as New York City's favourite breakfast drink! Also in 1668 Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in London. This eventually became Lloyds of London, a world-renowned insurance company, initially specialising in maritime insurance. At the start of the 18th century coffee was so popular in England that several thousand coffee houses were have believed to have been in existence. King Charles II banned these places for fear that they would prove to be the source of a much feared revolution. The ban was not very successful lasting somewhat shorter than a fortnight! Brazil started its coffee industry in 1727 after France had started its plantations in Martinique. It is said that during a dispute between the French and Dutch, a Brazilian named Francisco de Melo Palheta was sent to mediate. The upshot was that he ran off with the wife of the Governor of French Guyana, taking several cuttings of coffee plants with him. 1773 saw the Boston Tea Party and one of Great Britain's biggest mistakes (but that's another story). Americans took umbrage at the excessive tax on Tea by King George. This served to make coffee more popular and be deemed the national drink.
The start of the 19th century saw coffee take a bigger step forward with the advent of using steam pressure to produce a drink called "espresso", During the early to mid 1800's coffee continued to grow in popularity with several well known brands appearing. Maxwell house was one such, named after a hotel in the USA where that particular coffee blend was served. In the 20th century Germany took coffee to its heart, using it as a social occasions for people to get together and talk. Even today in any part of Germany, you will find specialist shops serving a range of excellent coffees, where the patrons are able to buy a cup and stand at waist high tables for a chat before moving on to their respective destinations. The very start of the 1900's saw several other leaps forward in coffee manufacture and distribution. In 1900, Hill's started packing coffee in vacuum-sealed tins. This would eventually replace the roasting shops all over the world with more centralised packing and shipping. 1901 saw the first patented espresso machine as well as the first instant coffee, invented in Chicago by Satori Kato. It should be noted however that the first massed produced instant coffee was developed and marketed by George C Washington, an Englishman who sold the coffee under the "RedE" label. The start of the 1900's also saw caffeine being successfully removed from coffee for the first time. It took a while to become accepted and was only sold in the US, easily the largest market in the world for coffee during 1923. World War 1 saw the rationing of coffee in Europe. Some people used a coffee and Chicory mix to make coffee go further. It is believed that it was around this time the phrase "Ersatz coffee" came about, a term of German origin meaning a "poor substitute".. Prohibition in the United States in the 20's caused the demand for coffee to soar. Inability to purchase alcohol by legal means meant that people readily turned to caffeine as an acceptable replacement. The boom in coffee sales in the USA caused plantations around the world to expand and develop. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War and after the end of prohibition coffee was still popular, but not as booming as it had been Nestle of Switzerland became involved in helping Brazil solve its coffee surplus problem. Nescafe was developed and introduced in Switzerland. At the start of the 1940's the United States accounted for about 70% of the world's coffee crop consumption, and during their belated entry into World War Two, American soldiers found Maxwell House coffee included in their rations. Also in the States, the threat of world collapse after the inclusion of Japan and the USA in World War Two, meant that coffee was hoarded, causing rationing to be introduced. The end of World War Two saw Italy develop a better espresso machine and also the now famous Cappuccino. The Cappuccino is so called because it was thought that the colour of the coffee was the same as the habits of Capuchin Monks. With the exception of the popular acceptance of decaffeinated coffee during the 1980s, coffee development has mainly been static, with coffee companies preferring to market new blends to tempt the consumer. Sometime during the 1950s instant coffee became more popular than fresh brewed coffee from ground beans. A dark day indeed... In part 2. The types of coffee and coffee regions There are many coffee related web sites on the Net, just do a search in your favourite search engine using "coffee". I will be publishing a number of interesting sites at the end of the series, many run by private individuals as a hobby. There's a lot of coffee out there! |
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