I have been receiving a lot of questions about coffee production here in Colombia.
First a history lesson.
Used traditionally by nomadic mountain warriors of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia, where the plant is indigenous, coffee was first eaten as a food sometime between 575 and 850 AD, long before it was made into a hot beverage, in 1000-1300 AD. Originally coffee beans were crushed into balls of animal fat and used for quick energy during long treks and warfare. The fat combined with the high protein content (not present in the beverage), was an early type of “energy bar”.
One well-known legend is that coffee was first discovered by a young goatherd named Kaldi who noticed his goats behaving frenetically after eating red berries from a nearby bush. Curious and hoping to energise himself Kaldi tried some. To his delight, his tiredness quickly faded into a fresh burst of energy and he began dancing about excitedly with his goats. It’s possible that Kaldi did not enjoy the flavour and threw them in the fire, which is how they may have got roasted for the first time.
The habit that Kaldi soon developed was noticed by a monk from a local monastery. The monk tried the fruits himself, and noticing the effect, came upon the idea of boiling berries to make a drink to help the monks stay awake during their religious services. News of the drink spread rapidly throughout all the monasteries in the kingdom.
From Ethiopia (Arabica coffee) it travelled to Yemen via the harbour of Mocha. In Arabia the beans were cooked, which killed them genetically – preventing their production in other countries – Arabia monopolised and controlled the market for a long time. However, in 1600 an Indian pilgrim managed to smuggle some genetically viable beans that he took to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Around 16 years later the Dutch also smuggled some beans out of Yemen and grew them in greenhouses (in Amsterdam). From Amsterdam they took them to their colonies in the Caribbean and that’s how coffee came to South America. The Dutch gave it as a present to the French. The French probably took it to their colonies in South East Asia, such as Vietnam.
Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, used to grow coffee but a fungus destroyed the plantations and that’s why they started growing tea.
