Coffee please!
The most common legend about the discovery of coffee is that it happened in the ninth century A.D.A goat herder in Ethiopia named Kalil noticed that his goats became very active after they ate red berries from a leafy bush. He tried a few berries himself, and he was soon as overactive as his herd. Kalil told other people in his tribe about his experience, and for the next four hundred years, people chewed the berries because they gave quick energy.
Recent botanical evidence indicates that Coffee Arabica was first grown on the plateaus of central Ethiopia. There, the Galla tribe used to mix the beans with animal fat and eat this mixture as a source of nutrition. In 1000 A.D., the Arabs began to boil the beans and created a drink they called “qahwa” which means wine, coffee, or any drink made from plants. Coffee was also used by the people of that region to get more energy. However, the Turks were the first to adopt coffee as an everyday drink, often adding spices to the brew. The world’s first coffeehouse was opened in Constantinople in 1475.
The introduction of coffee in Europe came much later. The delicacy was guarded like a military secret, and transportation of the Muslim regions was forbidden. In the 1600s, coffee was introduced in Europe by ltalian traders through the port of Venice. Soon coffee became a popular European beverage, too. Coffeehouses spread in one country after another, and became popular meeting placers. The first coffeehouses opened in England around 1650, and almost twenty years later coffee replaced beer as New York City’s breakfast drink.
Today coffee is drunk in millions of homes and workplaces all over the world, and coffee shops are found at almost every intersection in major cities.