COFFEE LEGEND
The ‘story of coffee’ began in the 12th Century. One legend has it that coffee originated from the Garden of Eden; and the Mufti (or ruler) of Eden was said to be the first person on earth who had the great opportunity of drinking coffee. Another legend tells of how Kaldai, an Ethiopian shepherd boy, who noticed that his goats were becoming refreshed, jumping about and never wanting to sleep after eating some red seeds from a ‘coffee’ tree. Kaldai tasted these red seeds, and also found that he felt vigorous and wide awake. The popularity of coffee spread across the continents - from Africa to India and along the Mediterranean countries – on the routes traveled by Muslim pilgrims and Mid-Eastern sea merchants.
In the late 17th century, Dutch merchants planted coffee trees they had brought over from the Mocha Village on their island colony of Indonesia. Later on, the French tried to plant coffee trees in Brazil, and were successful. As a result, since then Brazil has become the largest coffee producing country in the world to this day.
Coffee spread into Thailand in the 18th century. Several campaigns were then launched to promote the planting of coffee trees, instead of growing opium, in the Northern region of Thailand.