There is nothing better than waking up in the morning, the sun shimmering on the water and respectfully not yet beaming the grass dry. Because dear readers, dry it is and I am not referring to our latest favourite album “Pusha T - It’s Almost Dry”.
The sun next to good quality sleep is the recipe for a good morning. If the morning was a dessert, the cherry on top is a steaming hot cup of coffee. The only way to express that morning cup is by summoning the ASMR god of BBC Food, Ainsley Harriott
“Don’t talk to me before my morning coffee” and nothing rings more true. Coffee although an ancient drink is quite an utopian idea. Coffee is in modern society classless, knows no borders and doesn’t discriminate. It is drunk by everyone and everybody. Nothing has enslaved more people to a substance than coffee has which is evident in the prevalence of the availability of it. From Indonesia’s infamous poop coffee to the ultra exclusive Blue Mountain from Jamaica. Coffee can be bought for “dirt” cheap as well as €25 euro for 150 gram (5.3oz) of Blue Mountain.
Around 2012 coffee culture exploded right around when people were using the mustache on a stick, obsessing over bacon and latte art. In cities around the world you saw the same coffee shops opening up with semi-industrial interior, exposed brick, neon letters and a bike on the wall. Coffee saw a true revolution with a wide array of global vanities like cappuccino from Italy and the flat white from Australia. New techniques came to the forefront like the aeropress and old techniques such as the drip filter were improved upon.
My great-grandmother, Suzy van der Kwast, contributed to worldwide coffee culture before it was cool. In 1964 she opened, “Suzy’s” in the center of Wellington in New-Zealand.
Suzy’s was a place where people would come to relax, sit down and enjoy a cup of long black drip coffee something that Suzy had brought with her from the Netherlands. For 23 years her coffee bar was popular with business people, students, artists, taxi drivers and cleaners. Everybody came from the Prime Minister to the cleaning lady.
Let’s talk about the history of coffee. Modern day coffee is complicated, the machines are expensive and advanced from pressure settings, grind settings to water quality. Ancient coffee was simple but probably not that tasteful.
The Legend of Kaldi
Coffee grown worldwide can trace its heritage back centuries to the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau. There, legend says the goat herder Kaldi first discovered the potential of these beloved beans.
The story goes that that Kaldi discovered coffee after he noticed that after eating the berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night.
Kaldi reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayer. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.
Kaldi did not receive the warmest of welcomes at the monastery. One monk referred to his coffee beans as "the Devil's work" and tossed them into the fire. According to the legend, the aroma that wafted up from the roasting beans caught the monks' attention. After removing the beans from the fire and crushing them to extinguish the embers, they attempted to preserve them in an ewer filled with hot water.
This newly brewed coffee had an aroma that attracted even more monks. After trying it, they experienced the uplifting effects for themselves. They vowed to drink it daily as an aid to their religious devotions and to keep them awake during prayers.
The Legend of Omar
Omar was once exiled from Mocha to a desert cave and, while trying to survive, he tried berries from some shrub and found them to be bitter. He then tried to roast the beans with the idea to improve the flavor but roasting made them hard. He then boiled the roasted beans trying to soften the beans, and made a fragrant brown liquid. Omar drunk the liquid, felt new energy and sustained for days. When the news of "miracle drug" reached Mocha, Omar was asked to return and was made a saint.
The Legend of Mohamed
“The oldest legend is that coffee was introduced by Mohamed, for when he lay ill and prayed to Allah, the angel Gabriel (as well as bringing the Koran) descended with a beverage 'as black as the Kaaba of Mecca' that gave him 'enough strength to unseat 40 men from their saddles and make love to the same number of women”
Tribes
It is to be believed that centures before the legend of Kaldi. Tribes from Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan were already eating coffee beans. These coffee beans were often wrapped in a ball of ghee and chewed for long and tedious roads. It’s further believed by historian that the custom of chewing on coffee beans was brought from east of Ethiopia to the city of Harrar. Besides it’s African roots, who and where coffee was discovered is still unknown.
Arabian Peninsula
Coffee beans quickly found its way to Yemen, Arabia and Egypt where it grew massively in popularity. The port of Yemen, Mocha became the center of the coffee trade.
Initially the authorities in Yemen actively encouraged coffee drinking as it was considered preferable to the chewable stimulant Kat a chewable herb that is still used today. The first coffeehouses were opened in Mecca and were called 'kaveh kanes'. They quickly spread throughout the Arab world and became successful
places where chess was played, gossip was exchanged, and singing, dancing and music were enjoyed. They were luxuriously decorated and each had an individual character.
Nothing quite like the coffeehouse had existed before: a place where society and business could be conducted in comfortable surroundings and where anyone could go, for the price of coffee.
Coffee in Europe
The first description of coffee beans was printed in 1574 by the famous Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius (who also took the tulip to Europe). Clusius received information on the coffee beans from some Italian colleagues, who knew the beans from Alexandria in Egypt. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) started with trading in Mocha in 1616 and during the first half of the 17th century the Dutch traded in coffee in the Arab world and Asia.
The race in the coffee trade was eventually won by the Dutch.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) acquired their coffee plants from India where they ruled. These plants were sent in 1696 by a Dutch Governor to his colleague in Batavia (Jakarta). The seeds grew so well that the governor started to plant them for commercial use. The VOC had already traded coffee for nearly a century so they had the knowledge how to cultivate the plants. The fist coffee export of 450 kg from Java to Amsterdam was done in 1711. Ten years later they were exporting 60.000 kg.
In 1706 the first plants were send as a gift to the mayor of Amsterdam. He started to cultivate the plant in the greenhouse of his local botanical garden and he succeeded by 1713 the first European coffee was harvested. The mayor started sending the coffee seeds out and he presented the French King Louis XIV with a coffee tree.
Until the mid 19th century, most coffee grown outside Arabia originated from the few seeds imported and grown by the Dutch in Jakarta in 1699.
Inclusivity
By the end of the 18th century all over Europe the price had dropped so much that coffee has changed from a drink for the better off, to a daily drink for all layers of society. Coffee at home was first only practiced by the very rich, who could afford to import their own coffee. Coffee was not only a energizing beverage it was also a good way to show off your expensive porcelain, to serve someone coffee at home was a way to show off your wealth. When coffee became more common, and the coffeehouses became more fashionable, it was no longer a symbol of wealth to serve coffee. Coffee in the early 18th century was available for everybody in regular shops in most West and South European cities.
Here we are a couple centuries later and coffee has us all in her grasp. One thing that every coffee drinker remembers is their first sip: yuck how can people drink this garbage?