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Coffee was first discovered in Eastern Africa in an area we know
today as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the name
of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating
berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena, Kaldi tried eating
the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed
energy. The news of this energy laden fruit quickly spread throughout
the region.
Monks hearing about this amazing fruit, dried the berries so that they
could be transported to distant monasteries. They reconstituted these
berries in water, ate the fruit, and drank the liquid to provide
stimulation for a more awakened time for prayer.
Coffee berries were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula,
and were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. From
there, coffee traveled to Turkey, where coffee beans were roasted for
the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed, and then
boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage we enjoy
today.
Coffee first arrived on the European continent by means of Venetian
trade merchants. Once in Europe this new beverage fell under harsh
criticism from the Catholic church. Many felt the pope should ban
coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise, the pope,
already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian
beverage.
Coffee houses spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for
intellectual exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage,
and forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity.
In the 1700's, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of a French
infantry captain who nurtured one small plant on its long journey across
the Atlantic. This one plant, transplanted to the Caribbean Island of
Martinique, became the predecessor of over 19 million trees on the
island within 50 years. It was from this humble beginning that the
coffee plant found its way to the rest of the tropical regions of South
and Central America.
Coffee was declared the national drink of the then colonized United
States by the Continental Congress, in protest of the excessive tax on
tea levied by the British crown.
Espresso, a recent innovation in the way to prepare coffee, obtained its
origin in 1822, with the innovation of the first crude espresso machine
in France. The Italians perfected this wonderful machine and were the
first to manufacture it. Espresso has become such an integral part of
Italian life and culture, that there are presently over 200,000 espresso
bars in Italy.
Today, coffee is a giant global industry employing more than 20 million
people. This commodity ranks second only to petroleum in terms of
dollars traded worldwide. With over 400 billion cups consumed every
year, coffee is the world's most popular beverage. If you can imagine,
in Brazil alone, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation
and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants.
Source: Coffee Universe
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© Copyright 2007-2008 Blessed Bean Coffee (407) 463-4004
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