Circa A.D. 1000 - 1600s: Coffee trees were first cultivated in Mocca, now known as Yemen. Arabia held a monopoly of the “coffee market” for hundred of years by quickly boiling the harvested coffee cherries to make the seeds infertile. After coffee made it’s way to Arabia, the Turks were the first to roast the coffee “beans” over an open fire. They crushed the roasted beans and boiled the grounds, creating a “bean broth.”
During A.D. 1400s: The world’s first coffeehouse opens in Turkey.
Early 1600s: A holy man from India smuggled seven coffee beans out of Arabia, wrapped around his belly. On his return home, he planted the beans in the hills of Mysore, India, where the trees flourished.
In Europe, roasted coffee first arrived by means of Venetian trade merchants. Coffeehouses spread quickly and became centers for intellectual exchange. Still, some members of the Catholic Church felt that the pope should ban coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise, the pope, already an avid coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian beverage.
During A.D. 1600s: In an attempt to tap into the “coffee market,” the Dutch alledgedly smuggled coffee trees from Malabar and planted them in their greenhouses. They began growing coffee at their forts in India and Java. Within a few years the Dutch colonies had become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe.
In London, women were not allowed in coffeehouses, resulting in an annonymous “Women’s Petition Against Coffee.
“Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water.” The Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674)
A.D. 1689: The first Colonial American coffeehouse opens in Boston. Tea was then the favorite drink of the colonists, but later coffee was declared the national drink in protest of the excessive tea tax levied by the British crown. In 1773, The Boston Tea Party was planned in The Green Dragon coffeehouse.
During the 1700s: The coffee tree found its way to the Caribbean Island of Martinique to the by means of a French infantry captain who nurtured one small plant across the Atlantic. Within 50 years, this one plant became the predecessor of over 19 million trees on the Island. Coffee cultivation quickly made its way to all other tropical regions of South and Central America.
Circa A.D. 1893: Coffee from Brazil was introduced into Kenya and Tanzania, not far from its place of origin in Ethiopis, 600 years earlier, thus ending its journey around the world.
Around 1822: While searching for a new way to make coffee, the French built the first crude espresso machine. The Italians perfected this innovation and were the first to manufacture the machine. Espresso has become such an integral part life in Italy that there are presently over 200,000 espresso bars there.
Today: Coffee is grown in 50 countries and is the principal commercial crop of over a dozen countries. With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world’s second most popular beverage next to tap water, and has become a giant global industry.
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