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The Story Of Coffee
The story of how coffee growing and drinking spread
around the world is one of the greatest and most
romantic in history. It starts in the Horn of Africa, in
Ethiopia, where the coffee tree probably originated in
the province of Kaffa. There are various fanciful but
unlikely stories surrounding the discovery of the
properties of roasted coffee beans. One story has it
that an Ethiopian goatherd was amazed at the lively
behaviour of his goats after chewing red coffee berries.
What we know with more certainty is that the succulent
outer cherry flesh was eaten by slaves taken from
present day Sudan into Yemen and Arabia, through the
great port of its day, Mocha, now synonymous with
coffee. Coffee was certainly being cultivated in Yemen
by the 15th century and probably much earlier than that.
Mocha was also the main port for the one sea route to
Mecca, and was the busiest place in the world at the
time. But the Arabs had a strict policy not to export
any fertile beans, so that coffee could not be
cultivated anywhere else. The coffee bean is the seed of
the coffee tree, but when stripped of its outer layers
it becomes infertile. The race to make off with some
live coffee trees or beans was eventually won by the
Dutch in 1616, who brought some back to Holland where
they were grown in greenhouses.
Initially, the authorities in Yemen actively encouraged
coffee drinking as it was considered preferable to the
extreme side effects of Kat, a shrub whose buds
and leaves were chewed as a stimulant. The first
coffeehouses were opened in Mecca and were called 'kaveh
kanes'. They quickly spread throughout the Arab world
and became successful places where chess was played,
gossip was exchanged, and singing, dancing and music
were enjoyed. They were luxuriously decorated and each
had an individual character. Nothing quite like the
coffeehouse had existed before: a place where society
and business could be conducted in comfortable
surroundings and where anyone could go, for the price of
coffee.
The Arabian coffeehouses soon became centres of
political activity and were suppressed. Coffee and
coffeehouses were subsequently banned several times over
the next few decades, but they kept reappearing.
Eventually a solution was found when coffeehouses and
coffee were taxed. |
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COFFEE COMES TO ASIA
The Dutch were also growing coffee at Malabar in India,
and in 1699 took some to Batavia in Java, in what is now
Indonesia. Within a few years the Dutch colonies had
become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe. Today
Indonesia is the fourth largest exporter of coffee in
the world.
COFFEE COMES TO EUROPE
Venetian traders first brought coffee to Europe in 1615.
This was a period when the two other great hot beverages
also appeared in Europe. Hot chocolate was the first,
brought by the Spanish from the Americas to Spain in
1528; and tea, which was first sold in Europe in 1610.
At first coffee was mainly sold by lemonade vendors and
was believed to have medicinal qualities. The first
European coffeehouse opened in Venice in 1683, with the
most famous, Caffe Florian in Piazza San Marco, opening
in 1720. It is still open for business today.
The largest insurance market in the world, Lloyd's of
London, began life as a coffeehouse. It was started in
1688 by Edward Lloyd, who prepared lists of the ships
that his customers had insured.
COFFEE COMES TO THE AMERICAS
The first reference to coffee being drunk in North
America is from 1668 and, soon after, coffee houses were
established in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other
towns. The Boston Tea Party Of 1773 was planned in a
coffee house, the Green Dragon. Both the New York Stock
Exchange and the Bank of New York started in
coffeehouses, in what is today the financial district
known as Wall Street.
It was in the 1720s that coffee first came to be
cultivated in the Americas, through what is perhaps the
most fascinating and romantic story in the history of
coffee.
Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu was a French naval
officer serving in Martinique who in 1720, went to Paris
on leave. With assistance and no little personal charm
he acquired a coffee tree which he took with him on the
ship back. The plant was kept in a glass case on deck to
keep it warm and prevent damage from salt water. The
journey was eventful, or at least Mr. Mathieu de Clieu's
journal of the voyage was. Pirates from Tunis threatened
the ship, there was a violent storm and the plant had to
be tied down. Our hero faced an enemy on board who was
jealous and tried to sabotage the plant. There was a
violent struggle in which a branch was torn off, but the
plant survived this horror. |
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Then the ship was becalmed and drinking water was
rationed. De Clieu had his priorities right and gave
most of his allowance of precious water to the coffee
plant. It survived, as did he.
Finally, the ship arrived in Martinique and the coffee
tree was re-planted at Preebear, where it was surrounded
by a thorn hedge and watched over by slaves. It grew,
and multiplied, and by 1726 the first harvest was ready.
It is recorded that by 1777, there were between 18 and
19 million coffee trees on Martinique, and the model for
a new cash crop that could be grown in the New World was
in place.
But it was the Dutch who first started the spread of the
coffee plant in Central and South America, where today
it reigns supreme as the main continental cash crop.
Coffee first arrived in the Dutch colony of Surinam in
1718, to be followed by plantations in French Guyana and
the first of many in Brazil at Para. In 1730 the British
introduced coffee to Jamaica, where today the most
famous and expensive coffee in the world is grown in the
Blue Mountains. By 1825, South and Central America were
on track towards their coffee destiny. That date is also
important, as it was when coffee was first planted in
Hawaii which produces the only US coffee, and one of the
finest coffees on the market.
COFFEE TODAY
For North Americans, the world's largest consumers of
coffee, Seattle is the new spiritual home of coffee. The
wettest major city in the USA gave birth, in the 1970s,
to a café or 'Latte' culture, which swept the USA and
has dramatically improved the general quality of the
coffee Americans drink. Today, any public place in the
USA will have one or more coffee carts, serving a
variety of coffees, drinks and snacks.
This new found 'coffee culture' has started to spread to
the rest of the world. Countries with great coffee
traditions of their own - such as Italy, Germany, and
Scandinavia - have added new converts to the pleasures
of good coffee. Today it is possible to find good coffee
in every major city of the world, from London to Sydney
to Tokyo; tomorrow the world will drink more and, more
importantly, better coffee.
COFFEE IS A GLOBAL COMMODITY
The importance of coffee in the world economy cannot be
overstated. It is one of the most valuable primary
products in world trade, second in value only to oil as
a source of foreign exchange to developing countries.
Its cultivation, processing, trading, transportation,
and marketing provide employment for millions of people
worldwide. Coffee is crucial to the economic and
political structure of many developing countries. For
many of the world's least developed countries, exports
of coffee account for a substantial part of their
foreign exchange earnings (in some cases over 80%).
Coffee is a traded commodity on major futures and
commodity exchanges, most importantly in London and New
York. |
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INDIAN RIVER COFFEE®
Indian River Coffee®
has been roasting and serving specialty coffee beverages
at their locations along Florida’s Space Coast since
1996 and remains one of the premier coffee roasters in
North America. They custom roast and blend only the
finest 100% Arabica coffee beans that have been hand
selected from coffee beans found around the world.
If you have not enjoyed the Indian River Coffee®
Experience, there is no time like the present. Come to
one of their coffeehouses or
place an order for your
favorite coffee bean. Your satisfaction is always
guaranteed and your business will always be appreciated!
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