Lesson 2: The History of Coffee‏

Today we are going to explore a little more history of coffee and how it becamethe popular beverage we know today.


There are many incomplete and occasionally contradictory records ofhow coffee became popular and spread around the world. No-one canbe certain of all of the facts, but nevertheless it is still fun toexplore.


It is thought that some form of coffee cultivation may have startedas early as A.D. 575, though written references to it did not beginuntil much later, with one of the earliest recorded being aroundthe 10th Century by the famous Persian physician and alchemist,Rhazes.


However, it would be another four to five hundred yearsbefore coffee really rose to popular acclaim, and having beentraded through the port of Mocha (in present day Sudan), we knowthat by the 15th Century it was actively being cultivated in Yemen.


The early origins of coffee in the west had quite deep religiouslinks. For some it played an important ceremonial role, whilstothers considered it to be an evil concoction and wanted it to bemade illegal.


There is a story that suggests advisors asked Pope Clement VIII to outlaw coffee as it was a favourite beverage of the infidel Ottoman Empire that they considered such a threat. Afterconsideration, the Pope is said to have had a cup of this "evilelixir" prepared for him and declared it "delicious". So hebaptised the brew, making it immediately acceptable and instantlypopular in Christian Europe.


Coffee reached the masses of Europe in 1615. It was introduced byVenetian traders and initially sold by lemonade vendors, some ofwhom promoted it as having medicinal qualities. The first of thefamous European coffee houses are not believed to have opened untilthe middle of the 17th Century.


The popularity of coffee spread through Europe during the 17th and18th Centuries. For example, from not long after their inceptionaround 1650 and for the remainder of the period, more coffee shopsexisted in London than do so today.


Coffee shops were influential places, used extensively by artists, intellectuals, merchants and bankers. Coffee houses became a forum for political activity and a place where business was done. For instance the great Lloyds of London insurance company began life in a small London café, and flourished into the institution we know today.


In 1616, realising the commercial advantages of cultivating theplant required to produce this brand new drink, Dutch sea captainPieter Van der Broeck, ignoring a strict Arabian policy not toexport fertile beans in order that coffee could not be cultivatedanywhere else, stole a dozen plants from Mocha and returned homewith them to the Netherlands, where they were cultivated ingreenhouses.


Those plants gave birth to plantations in the Dutch colonies inJava (now part of Indonesia), Timor, Sumatra, Ceylon and Celebes.The French and Spanish soon followed the trend with plantations intheir respective colonies. Despite its enormous empire, the UKdidn't follow suit until 1730 when it began production in Jamaica.It was 1840 before the UK began to grow coffee in India, wherehistorically it had always cultivated tea.


The story of how coffee reached the new world of the Americas isanother that is shrouded in uncertainty and conjecture. GabrielMathieu de Clieu was a young French naval officer serving inMartinique, who in 1720 whilst on leave, frequented a number ofParis coffee houses and became passionate about the beverage.


It is said he developed a fascination with the idea of growing coffee in the new world and somehow managed to acquire a coffee treeseedling, probably from the botanical gardens where the Dutch hadgifted a number of plants to the French. The seedling went with himwhen he set sail back to Martinique.


Whilst on the voyage the plant was a point of interest for many passengers, some of whom actually tried to destroy it.


The voyage itself was also not without problems which resulted in the rationing of drinking water. With the bare minimum needed to survive, Gabriel shared his scant allowance with the seedling and both survived.


The plant that grew was to become the father of all the coffee in the Americas and Caribbean. Unfortunately, the story ends on a sad note. Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, the man who introduced coffee to Latin America, died a poor and destitute man in Paris during the French revolution.


Coffee slowly spread south through Suriname and French Guyana, fromwhere it was introduced to Brazil by Portuguese military man,Francisco de Melo Palheta. One account suggests that he smuggledthe seeds to Brazil in the heads of flowers given to him by thewife of the Governor of Guyana, Mme d'Orvilliers.


By the early 19th Century, coffee had thoroughly established itsimportance to the economies of many Central and South Americannations. Coffee once again experienced an upturn in popularity by the late20th and early 21st Centuries. Large coffee house chainsestablished an international footprint, introducing a multitude ofcoffee based drinks to the population at large.


Speciality coffee became popular in many countries as committed individuals sought to offer the world's finest blends and single origin coffees to discerning customers.


Many specialist coffee bars and bean roasters have sprung up in UKcities. In the USA, the boom is in full swing with numerous smallroasteries and independent retailers joining in the revolution. TheNew Zealand and Australian speciality market is well established,and mainland Europe is gaining pace.



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