Coffee
FROM CROP TO CUP
Whether you’re an ‘americano’, ‘skinny mocha’ a ‘flatwhite’ or a ‘single origin cortado’,
your coffee bean has grown from a humble, pestilent North African shrub into the
world’s second most valuable export by developing countries – oil being the first. The
story of the coffee bean from its earliest discovery, to the vice of our modern addiction
is as rich and dark as the liquid it creates.
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Growing to an average height of around
3.5 meters, the genus of the plant named
‘Coffea arabica’ produces a bitter red/
purple fruit (aka ‘cherry’) within which is
the double seed we lovingly know today
as the coffee bean. From here however, it
gets a bit fuzzy.
him the stamina to dismount 40 warriors
before going on to mount 40 women.
Another ancient meme tells of the great
King Solomon entering a town of plague
ridden inhabitants on a mission to use
coffee to heal the sick - again from the
angel Gabriel.
As with any research that predates the
invention of the printing press, or modern
literacy, there are a host of fantasies,
fables and fiction which (while often
making for better reading), offer elements
of potential truths buffered by artistic
fancy. For the first recorded Europeans,
who delighted in the rich brew known as
‘kahway’, it was tales of multi-coloured
coffee birds and plague ravaged
princesses which were accredited to
the brew. While in the Kingdom of Islam,
bards sung of the prophet Mohammed
receiving a cup of coffee from the angel
Gabriel before a decisive battle, giving
Of all of the legends behind coffee, none
is more recited than that of the humble
Highland herder Kaldi and his dancing
goats.
As a roving Ethiopian goat herder, Kaldi
one day encountered his flock eating
cherries from a mystery shrub, after
which they all began to dance. Upon
sampling of the cherry himself, Kaldi too
felt compelled to join in and soon all were
having a bit of a boogie. Believing he
had found a fruit of utmost importance,
Kaldi took samples to his local Abbot for
analysis. After regaling him with the story
of his dancing goats, the Abbot believed
the fruit to be a product of the devil and
in reaction, threw them upon the fire
whence they came. However, the Abbot
would himself be converted after smelling
the richly roasted seed at the heart of the
cherry, which he exclaimed must surely
be of divine origin to produce such a rich
aromatic flavour. The Abbot thereafter
distributed an infusion of the bean to his
monks as an expression of divinity and to
assist in re maining awake during evening
prayer.
While there are many various versions of
the tale of Kaldi and his gluttonous goats,
the use of coffee for religious benefit lies
accurately at the heart of this drink’s early
discovery.
The scientific history of coffee begins with
human coprolite samples (fossilized poo)
showing digestion of the Coffea cherry as