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Beer may be the oldest man-made brew, with wine
a distant second. Beer recipes are at least as old as 6000 BC, but the oldest
winemaking processes date "only" from about the turn of the first millennium.
Their younger cousin, coffee, arose a few hundred years later, though no one
knows how old the plant itself is. Some archaeological evidence shows that
humans were eating the berries as long ago as a hundred thousand years.
One legend says that a goat herder in Ethiopia observed his charges eating the
red berries from a nearby tree and became excited. Trying them himself, he too
felt a great lift. By 600 AD that magical berry, and the brew made from drying
and grinding its seeds, had found its way to what is now Yemen, on the southern
tip of the Arabian peninsula.
precious seeds and the law
Stories tell of a native of India smuggling the precious seeds of the tree
out of Arabia around 1650 AD, then planting them in the hills of Chikmagalur.
Arabian law forbad the exporting of beans that could germinate, effectively
controlling coffee trade for centuries. Whether myth or history, the fruit of
those seeds now forms a third of India's large coffee output.
Europeans - the British, Dutch, French, and others - spread the beans to other
countries during their travels. The Dutch were responsible for its introduction
to Java in the 18th century. From those plantings, history tells us, came the
famed tree coveted by France's king, presented to him as a gift.
Louis XIV of France, finding the tree didn't tolerate frost well, had a
greenhouse erected to supply him with the beans to make the brew he so savored.
It is said that from that source came the cultivars used in Central and South
America.
Reaching Martinique around 1720, sprouts were planted and grew well in the hot
Caribbean clime. From the thousands of trees that resulted, some were
transported to Mexico where the product now forms one of their largest exports.
fruits of an illicit affair
Making its way to French Guiana around the same time, the tree grew well in
that steamy atmosphere. Seeing an opportunity, a rascal named Francisco de Melo
Palheta solicited the aid of the governor's wife to smuggle seeds out of the
country. As he prepared to part for Brazil, the lady handed him a bouquet of
flowers containing the illicit beans.
Brazil is now one of the largest coffee producers on the planet.
From Brazil the seeds complete the circle, making their way in the late 19th
century to Kenya and Tanzania, not far from their original home in Ethiopia. Six
centuries to return home is a long journey and an excellent excuse to rest and
have a cup.
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