The word 'coffee' comes from words used both in Arabic - 'kahweh', meaning ‘invigorating’ – and in Turkish – ‘kahveh’ meaning that which gives strength or vigour.
The fact is, we will never really know. The earliest known mention of coffee dates from the 10th century AD in the works of the Persian physician Rhazes, but the circumstances of its discovery are lost in the mists of time and legend.
According to one story, an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats seemed livelier than usual after eating red berries from a wild bush. Curious, he tried them for himself and felt strangely energized.
Certainly, by the 15th century, a beverage brewed from these dried berries was drunk widely in the Muslim world, and was particularly valued by the Sufi mystics as a stimulus to wakefulness during late night vigils.
Before long, the fashion for drinking coffee reached Europe and, by the 17th century, there were coffee houses in Austria, France, Germany, Holland and Britain.
The cultivation of coffee spread as well. The Dutch began to grow it in the Far East, and Britain and France introduced the crop in their colonies. Coffee reached Central and South America in the wake of missionaries, traders and colonists and found its ideal environment. Coffee is now the world’s second most traded commodity with the majority of beans grown in South and Central America, Asia and Africa.
Today, coffee is the world’s second most popular beverage, after water. All thanks, perhaps, to one, curious goatherd.
Sources : Nescafe, England, UK.
