Story
Prologue
Kaldi
Banned
Venetian Cup
Parisien café
Coffee in India
War booty
Nippon kohe
Characters
Further Reading

20
Story of Coffee
The history of coffee dates back 850 Ad, and possibly earlier with a number of reports and legends surrounding its first use. It is more likely that it originated in the Kingdom of Sheba which is in Both Ethiopia and Yemen. The earliest sources is a story about an Ethiopian farmer who noticed his goats becoming energized after eating the coffee berries.
Prologue
YemenThe earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Ahmed al-Ghaffar in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a similar way to how it is prepared now. Coffee was used by Sufi circles to stay awake for their religious rituals. Accounts differ on the origin of the coffee plant prior to its appearance in Yemen. From Ethiopia, coffee could have been introduced to Yemen via trade across the Red Sea. One account credits Muhammad Ibn Sa'd for bringing the beverage to Aden from the African coast. Other early accounts say Ali ben Omar of the Shadhili Sufi order was the first to introduce coffee to Arabia. According to al Shardi, Ali ben Omar may have encountered coffee during his stay with the Adal king Sadadin's companions in 1401.
Kaldi
Ethioipia
First mention of Coffee
Ethioipia
Dark bean spreads
Yemen
Coffee makes its way to Egypt
Egypt
Banned
Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Coffee Ban Overturned
Istanbul, Turkey
However, these bans were to be overturned in 1524 by an order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Suleiman I, with Grand Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el-İmadi issuing a fatwa allowing the consumption of coffee.
Coffee reaches Istanbul
Istanbul, Turkey
Knights and Coffee
Malta
Venetian Cup
Venice, Italy
In 1580 the Venetian botanist and physician Prospero Alpini imported coffee into the Republic of Venice from Egypt and soon coffee shops started opening one by one when coffee spread and became the drink of the intellectuals, of social gatherings, even of lovers as plates of chocolate and coffee were considered a romantic gift.
Pope baptizes coffee
Rome, Italy
Dutch does Coffee
Amsterdam, Netherlands
English drink something else besides tea
London, UK
The first coffeehouse in England was opened in Oxford in 1652. In London, the first one was opened later that same Year in at St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, by an eccentric Greek named Pasqua Roseé. Soon they were commonplace.
Möchtest du Kaffee?
Bremen & Hamburg, Germany
In Germany, coffeehouses were first established in North Sea ports, including Bremen (1673) and Hamburg (1677).
Parisien café
Paris, France
In 1669, Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Mehmed IV, arrived in Paris with his entourage bringing with him a large quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they provide their French and European guests with coffee to drink, but they also donated some beans to the royal court.
Coffee in India
Chikmagalur, Karnataka, India
The first record of coffee growing in India is following the introduction of coffee beans from Yemen by Baba Budan to the hills of Chikmagalur, Karnataka.
War booty
Vienna, Austria
Colonials prefer coffee over tea
Boston MA, USA
After the Boston Tea Party of 1773, large numbers of Americans switched to drinking coffee during the American Revolution because drinking tea had become unpatriotic
Vietnamese Coffee
Vietnam
Nippon kohe
Tokyo, Japan
The first European-style coffeehouse opened in Tokyo, Japan in 1888, and closed four years later.
Characters
Key Figures for Story of Coffee
Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki
Coffeeshop Owner
Pasqua Rosée
Coffeeshop Owner
Alfonso Bialetti
Italian Engineer
Pope Clement VIII
Catholic Pope
Pieter van den Broecke
Dutch Cloth Merchant
Prospero Alpini
Venetian Botanist
Gabriel de Clieu
French Naval Officer
Suleiman Aga
Ottoman Empire Ambassador
Further Reading
Book Recommenations for Story of Coffee
- Allen, Stewart Lee (1999). The Devil's Cup: Coffee, the Driving Force in History. Soho Press.
- Illy, Francesco & Riccardo (1989). From Coffee to Espresso
- Malecka, Anna (2015). "How Turks and Persians Drank Coffee: A Little-known Document of Social History by Father J. T. Krusiński". Turkish Historical Review. 6 (2): 175–193. doi:10.1163/18775462-00602006
- Pendergrast, Mark (2001) [1999]. Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. London: Texere. ISBN 1-58799-088-1.
Timelines Game
