are completely familiar with all the aspects of coffee history. Of the drinks
available to people today, few are as famous as coffee. Perhaps the best source
of caffeine short of the new energy drinks being developed, coffee is popular in
a variety of places, from the home to the office, from small coffeehouses to
swanky restaurants. The history of coffee can only be tracked a little more
than a thousand years, a relatively short period of time compared to alcoholic
beverages, which have been consumed since prehistory, and tea, which goes back
to over a thousand years BC. Despite this, coffee has spread throughout the
world as a popular beverage. A look at the history of coffee will help to show
how it became so widespread.African OriginsThe history of coffee begins sometime
around the 9th century, with its origins in Ethiopia as a beverage. The legend
of coffee is that Ethiopian herders noticed that their goats were especially
perky after eating the berries of a particular bush, and thus got the idea to
consume it as a stimulant. The reality is that coffee probably had already been
developed as a drink by the 9th century as a natural result of cultivation of
plants. From Ethiopia, the drink spread to North Africa, including Egypt.Middle
Eastern SuccessThe introduction of coffee to Egypt make it accessible to ports
with trade to the rest of the Middle East, where coffee became a popular drink
by the 1500s. Shortly after its introduction, Muslim authorities placed a ban
on the drink due to its stimulant properties. But much like prohibition in the
United States, the ban on coffee didn’t last and was later rescinded. At
this point in history, though, tight controls on such a commodity were in place.
Though coffee in its roasted form began to be exported to Italy and other
European Nations, unroasted seeds and plants were forbidden to be
exported.Colonization and CoffeeThis tight control over the export of coffee
plants didn’t last. This period of the history of coffee ended when Dutch
traders smuggled coffee seeds out of the Middle East in the 1600s, where it was
planted on the island of Java, which is still a major exporter of coffee today
and also shares its name with a nickname for the drink. Interestingly enough,
as coffee plants spread to other European colonies, another century into the
history of coffee, in the 1700s, the plant was smuggled to Brazil, which is
still the largest exporter of the drink.Coffee in AmericaThe history of coffee
in the United States follows that of early wars. Introduced there in the 1700s,
coffee’s popularity didn’t take off until the Revolutionary War,
when tea was scarce and colonists turned to other drinks. The drink again
gained in popularity during the war of 1812 for similar reasons. But the time
when the history of coffee developed to where it was an American fixture seems
to be during the Civil War, when demand was high enough that it became cemented
as a beverage in many American households. Through colonization and wars, the
history of coffee seems to follow that of the history of people, and its
widespread popularity throughout the world shows that it is truly an
international sensation. Hopefully the sections above have contributed to your
understanding of history of coffee. Share your new understanding about the
exciting history of coffee with others. They'll thank you for it.