Follow coffee’s progress from rare indulgence to everyday elixir.

Legend has it that an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi noticed his flock acting strangely after eating some berries from a local bush. He then tasted the berries and noticed how energised he became, he shared his discovery with other monks and soon the beverage as we know it today became a standard drink for the region. The first written records of coffee date back to the 12th century, prior to that, it is also thought that when Ethiopia occupied Yemen for 50 years in the 6th century, they also brought some seedlings with them for cultivation.

Initially, coffee was brewed in its raw green state and used as a medicinal and spiritual drink, it was called Qahwa the Arab word for wine because it was first made with honey and water and the whole cherry intact. By the end of the 15th century Moslem pilgrims introduced coffee throughout the Islamic world. The world's first café, Kiva Han, opened in Constantinople at the end of the 15th century. In 1536 the Ottoman Turks occupied Yemen and began exporting coffee throughout its empire. Its popularity was due to the fact that alcohol was forbidden and the energising properties were helpful to those that became tired when praying. Legend also has it that it was a crime to export the plant from the Moslem nations.

This all changed when an adventurous pilgrim named Baba Budan smuggled some seeds out of Arabia into the hills of Mysore India where they flourished. The Dutch, who dominated the worlds shipping trade at the time, came across the coffee and decided to bring it into its fold but needed a means of production so they planted some seeds in their colony in Java at the end of the 17th century. From here on the race was on by the world's powers to satisfy the new demand and begin cultivating this highly sought after commodity. From Java the plant went on to Sumatra, Timor, Bali Ceylon and other islands in the Dutch East Indies.

In 1714 the mayor of Amsterdam presented Louis X1V with a gift of a coffee tree for the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu a naval officer on leave from Martinique saw the tree in Paris and asked to take some seeds with him. For some reason permission was denied so he raided the garden one night and smuggled out of Paris some clippings from the coffee plant.

Within 50 years it is said that 19 million trees were growing on Martinique and it was also from this stock that had contributed to the rapid spread of coffee throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America. In a different yet related incident under the cover of darkness, Francisco de Mello Palheta smuggled some coffee seeds from French Guiana, and in 1727 the coffee industry was born in Brazil. By the beginning of the 19th century due to the huge production in Brazil as well as the ability to transport large quantities, coffee moves from being an indulgence to an everyday beverage.