History Of Coffee

Of the beverages on the market to people today

, not many are as well-known as coffee. Probably the best source of caffeine short of the new energy drinks currently being marketed, coffee is certainly widespread in a variety of places, from the home to the office, from small coffee houses to trendy dining places.

A brief history of coffee can be traced for just over a thousand years, a relatively brief period of time when compared with alcoholic beverages, which have been consumed since prehistoric times, and tea, that dates back over one thousand years BC. Not surprisingly, coffee has now spread throughout the world as a well-liked beverage. A short look at the history associated with coffee demonstrates how it has gained its reputation.

African Sources

The history of coffee as a drink began in Ethiopia some time during the ninth century. Legend has it that Ethiopian herders remarked that their goats became particularly perky after consuming the fruits from a specific plant, and so had the idea to consume it as a stimulant. The fact is that coffee probably had already been developed as a drink by the 9th century as a normal result of cultivation connected with plants. From Ethiopia, the drink spread to North Africa, including Egypt.

Middle Eastern Success

The introduction of coffee to Egypt caused it to be readily available at ports with trade with the remainder of the Middle East, where coffee grew to become a popular drink by the 1500s. Soon after its introduction, regulators put a ban on the beverage because of its stimulant properties. But like prohibition in the US, the ban on coffee could not survive and was eventually rescinded. At this point in history, though, tight regulations on the commodity were in place. Although coffee in its roasted form began to be exported to Italy as well as other European nations, export of the unroasted coffee beans and plants was banned.

Colonization And Coffee

This tight control over the export of coffee plants could not last. This particular time period of the history of coffee ended when Dutch merchants smuggled coffee seeds out of the Middle East in the 1600s, where they were planted on the island of Java, which is still a significant exporter of coffee today and also shares its identify with the nickname for the particular beverage. Oddly enough, as coffee plants spread to other European colonies, another century in the historical past associated with coffee, in the 1700s, the plants were smuggled to Brazil, which is still the biggest exporter of coffee beans.

Coffee in the United States

The history of coffee in the United States follows that of early conflicts. Brought in there in the 1700s, coffees popularity did not take off prior to the Revolutionary War, when tea was scarce and the colonists turned to various other beverages. The drink once more gained in popularity through the war of 1812 for the same reasons.

But the period when coffee drinking evolved to where it was an American fixture seems to be during the time of the Civil War, when demand was sufficient so it came to be a permanent fixture as a beverage in many American households. As a result of colonization and wars, the history of coffee generally seems to conform with that of the history of people, and its widespread recognition all over the world reveals that it is genuinely a global experience.

by: Alison Benjamin

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