Stories of Coffee

One of the most popular stories of the bean's discovery concerns a goat-herder named Kaldi. And here's how it goes... One day the young goat-herder noticed that his goats were behaving strangely. The old buck had lost his dignity and was cavorting about like a young kid. The once goatly demeanor of the rest of the herd had also vanished. Kaldi attributed the new attitude of his herd to the berries of a bush that the goats were gleefully eating. Kaldi had recently suffered a lamentable emotional setback and looked with envy at the cavorting goats... and thought, 'Why not me?'. 

With dramatic flair, he flung himself upon a bush and gulped down berries with abandon. He became the happiest goatherder around, dancing and eating berries with the goats. A monk happened by one day and was astounded to see a beautiful ballet happening in front of him. The old buck narcissisticly posed while the other goats were pirouetting with remarkable skill and Kaldi danced with wild recklessness. The monk was amazed and asked Kaldi exactly what caused this salubrious madness and Kaldi told him. Seeing the berries as the solution to his problem of falling asleep during prayers, he believed them to be a gift from God. The monk picked the berries, dried them and then boiled them to drink... Coffee. He then shared it with his fellow monks and soon monks everywhere were staying awake during prayer. The authenticity of the Kaldi tale is questionable but everyone seems to agree that coffee began being cultivated in 6th century Yemen. Also, not so many religions considered it a gift from God... indeed most denounced it as the drink of Satan. Political leaders labelled coffeehouses "hotbeds of sedition". The punishment under the rule of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kuprili {for publicily drinking coffee}was a sever beating on the first offense... and for the second?... being sewn into a leather bag and thrown into a river. However, this (and other similar edicts) didn't stop people from drinking coffee and with the help of Venetian trade merchants, coffee found its way to Italy in the early 16-hundreds. The clergy reacted by beseeching Pope Clement VIII to ban the brew since it was a drink of the devil... but the Pope, already a coffee drinker, decided to "fool Satan" by baptizing the drink and proclaming it to be a truly Christian beverage. Coffeehouses spread rapidly throughout Europe. Their political and social importance should not be overlooked. King Charles II of England outlawed coffeehouses after he noticed that they were attracting both upper and lower classes and that the intellectualizing going on was considerably different than that going on at the pubs. He refered to them as 'penny universities'. He recanted his decree just eleven days after it was issued as a result of the furor it created. By the end of the 17th century there were nearly two thousand coffeehouses in London. Lloyd's, a coffeehouse frequented by London insurance brokers, was the birthplace of Lloyd's of London. The London Stock Exchange claims a similar heritage. By the mid 19th century there were more than three thousand coffeehouses in Paris and it is said that is where the roots of the intellectualism started that grew into the French Revolution. Lets go back a bit... To the time of King Louis XIV (of France). Very few Europeans had coffee plants during that time and those who did were looked upon with envy. King Louis recieved one of the coveted plants from the burgomeister of Amsterdam in 1714. The significance of that gift cannot be overemphasized. Coffee plants are self propagating and the majority of coffee plants alive today in the French Colonies, South and Central America and Mexico can be traced back to that single coffee plant of King Louis XIV. Several years later a captain in infantry at Martinique, Captain Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, arrived at the French colony with some coffee plants he had obtained with great difficulty in France. The voyage back to Martinique involved pirates, storms and a calm lengthy enough to warrant the strict rationing of water. It is said that although the Captain was suffering from thirst, he shared his daily water ration with the small plants. When it finally arrived it was placed under twenty-four-hour guard until it reached maturity. Fifty years later there were nearly nineteen million coffee trees in Martinique. Coffee plants in Brazil and most of South America are said to be the consequence of an affair involving the wife of the French governor of Guyana and a Brazilian official. A farewell bouquet given to the Brazilian by the woman contained flowering coffee branches. Coffee was not just a consequence of affairs, but sometimes the affair itself. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Cantata No.211 (Coffee Cantata) in 1732. At the time Bach wrote the Cantata the German public was concerned about the number of women frequenting coffeehouses. In the Cantata, a worried father chastises his daughter for her coffee habit, which she refers to as "my dearest joy". The father implores her to quit, the daughter resists, repeatedly informing him, "Coffee my one only bliss is, sweeter than thousands of kisses, better than sparkling wine". The daughter renounces coffee only when informed she would never find a man willing to marry a woman with a coffee habit. The history of coffee is an extraordinary study. If you would like to learn more about it, I recommend the book, All About Coffee, by William Ukers. I would also recommend the book, From Bean To Cup, by Nick Jurich... partially from which I have shamelessly plagerized for this post.