A brief history of Coffee

No one knows exactly how or when coffee was discovered, though there are many legends about its origin. The 2 most common legends that you will hear is that coffee was either discovered in Ethiopia or Yemen.

In this short bog, I will just summarize the most common legend, which is from Ethiopia.   

The Ethiopian legend goes like this…..

Kaldi, an Abyssinian goat herder from Kaffa, was herding his goats through a highland area near a monastery. He noticed that they were behaving very strangely that day, and had begun to jump around in an excited manner, bleating loudly and practically dancing on their hind legs.

He found that the source of the excitement was a  small shrub with bright red berries. Curiosity took hold and he tried the berries for himself.

Like his goats, Kaldi felt the energizing effects of the coffee cherries. After filling his pockets with the red berries, he rushed home to his wife, and she advised him to go to the nearby monastery in order to share these “heaven sent” berries with the monks.

Upon arrival at the monastery, Kaldi’s coffee beans were not greeted with elation, but with disdain. One monk called Kaldi’s bounty “the Devil’s work” and tossed it into a fire.

However, according to legend, the aroma of the roasting beans was enough to make the monks give this novelty a second chance. They removed the coffee from the fire, crushed them to put out the glowing embers and covered them with hot water in an ewer to preserve them.

All the monks in the monastery smelled the aroma of the coffee and came to try it.

These monks found that coffee’s uplifting effects were beneficial in keeping them awake during their spiritual practice of prayers and holy devotions. They vowed that from then on they would drink this newfound beverage each day as an aid to their religious devotions.

However, this story did not appear in writing until A.D. 1671. It is generally considered to be apocryphal rather than a true history of coffee’s origin.

So now you know…. 🙂