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Coffee History:
It may seem strange, but coffee hasn't been around forever. In fact, it was not discovered until around 600 A.D. in the Middle East and only came into Europe in the 16th Century. In the 500 or so years since then, it has spread around the world and become an international commodity.
According to a coffee history legend, an Arabian shepherd named Kaldi found his goats dancing joyously around a dark green leafed shrub with bright red berries in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Kaldi soon determined that it was the bright red berries on the shrub that were causing the peculiar euphoria and after trying the berries himself, he learned of their powerful effect. Then monks at a local monastery used the berries to stay awake during extended hours of prayer and later distributed them to other monasteries around the world. Coffee was born.
Despite the appeal of this legend, recent botanical evidence suggests a different origin of the coffee bean. This evidence indicates that the history of the coffee bean began on the plateaus of central Ethiopia. Later, coffee beans made their way to Yemen, where it has been cultivated since the 6th century. After the first coffee houses opened in Cairo and Mecca, coffee became a passion rather than just a stimulant.
Today:
Coffee has become a major economic commodity. With $15 billion dollars exchanged every year, it is the top agricultural product and the second raw material(in value) traded in the world, a long way behind oil but ahead of wheat, steel, sugar and cocoa. Every day, 1.5 thousand million cups of coffee are drunk. Two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants are coffee drinkers, the great majority of whom are in Europe and especially in Northern Europe. As a general rule, the colder the weather, the more coffee is drunk and the closer one comes to the Equator, the less coffee is drunk. This is why – with the exception of Brazil,where 50 percent of the production is for the domestic market – producer countries send nearly all their production abroad. More than 400 billion cups are consumed each year. It is an international commodity that is second only to oil.
Coffee Background