History
| The actual origins of the green coffee plant are lost in the mists of time. Coffee is first mentioned in biblical times, The Odyssey tells us that the beautiful Helen gave Telemachus a black (possibly coffee) drink to console him, a drink which Homer calls “nepenthe”. The most popular legend from the fifteenth century comes from a Yemenite shepherd, from the region of Kaffa. He noticed that when his goats grazed on the leaves of a particular bush they stayed awake and restless all night. He told the prior of a nearby abbey of his discovery. The prior soon discovered that by boiling the berries of this plant he could make a herbal tea which helped keep the monks awake during their long nights of prayer. Maybe there is little truth in this legend, but behind most historical myths there is probably a grain of truth. Another legend tells of the prophet Mohamed, afflicted by a strange sleeping sickness, being given a black drink by the archangel Gabriel. The drink gave Mohamed the strength to defeat forty knights and to seduce forty maidens. It was certainly the Yemenite Arabs who made the use of coffee more widespread during the fifteenth century but it was the pilgrims from Mecca who exported the drink to Cairo, Egypt and Syria. The Western World discovered coffee around the end of the seventeenth century thanks to, it seems, a few sacks left behind in Vienna by the Turks. |
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