How Coffee Made Its Way Around The World

The exact details of how and when the process of making coffee was actually created aren't known

. There is however a great deal of speculation and even a few legends about what happened. It is generally believed though that coffee was first drank somewhere during the fifth to seventh century of the Common Era.

In the sixteenth century a man named Abd al-Qadier al-Jaziri compiled a work that traced the history of the drink as best as possible. It showed how coffee made its way from Ethiopia to what is now knows as Yemen, where it was cultivated and turned into the drink.

From Yemen coffee soon made it to places like Mecca, and eventually to larger places like Cairo and Baghdad.

Coffee had a lot of trouble making its way around the rest of the world, and got its start slowly. Its first venture to Europe was to Italy due to various trading connections Venice had with the Muslim world.

There it was sold only to the rich who could afford the high cost, and was naturally considered a luxury. It wasn't long before coffee was also making its way through various channels to places like England and France. By the seventeenth century it was a known beverage in Austria and the Netherlands as well.

The acceptance of coffee had been slowed by the fact that it was largely considered to be a Muslim drink. Due to this, the church placed a ban on it making it impossible for the drink to become popular or even sold in some parts of Europe. It was in 1600 that the pope of the day lifted the ban, despite a great deal of protest, allowing more people to experience the drink.

Other churches placed bans on coffee during other time periods. At some point before the seventeenth century the Ethiopian Orthodox Church banned it along with other things like smoking. All of this was due to those things being associated with Muslims and Pagans.

Other bans on coffee existed over time for other reasons. For instance, by the end of the seventeenth century there were over three thousand coffee houses in England but it's widely believed that at one point women were forbidden to enter them.

This wasn't a practice everywhere, but the ban existed in other parts of Europe as well.

Coffee made it to the Americas in the eighteenth century. One man in the French military managed to keep one coffee plant alive during the long trek to America and then planted in the Caribbean. That one plant was the start of what became millions upon millions of coffee plants in that area.

In the United States coffee took a lot longer to catch on. Tea was the drink of choice and coffee was a rarity. This was due to choice rather than availability. After the famous tea tax imposed by the British however, coffee was given its chance to shine.

Coffee was declared the official national drink of the United States in protest of the tea tax. Today, coffee in the USA and other parts of America is a part of the way of life. Around the world it is one of the most popular drinks there are.

by: S.Brooks

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