A Word about the History of Coffee

Posted on Jan 9, 2012

A Word about the History of Coffee

Although it’s tempting to name Kaldi, the supposed Ethiopian goat-herder who first noticed that the same goat who had been chewing on some coffee beans experienced a surge of energy, as the “Thomas Edison” of coffee, the history – like the drink – is a little murkier than that. The story for the origins of coffee brewing – as opposed to the discovery of the beans/berries themselves – belongs to Sheik Omar.

Other events, which you’re about to learn about in the next sections, are also possibly legend – Marco Polo encountering Mocha beans in Tyre, for example. It’s difficult to verify most of these accounts, which means that the history of coffee is best described in places, not people. It’s well -established the coffee as a popular beverage began in the Arabian peninsula, where coffee was indeed roasted and brewed much like it is today.

So it’s up to you whether or not you accept some of the more “legendary” tales of the origins of coffee – though our knowledge of coffee’s primordial geography does seem to verify the Ethiopia-Yemen link as the cradle of coffee civilization.