Coffee

 

The global coffee trade is estimated to be between $100 to $200 billion a year.

How did coffee become so popular?

The romantic albeit apocryphal legend of Kaldi, the Ethiopian Goat Herder:

A young goat herder named Kaldi lived in the region of Kaffa, Ethiopia. One day, he noticed his goats behaving unusually perky, dancing and jumping around after eating red berries from a certain shrub.

Curious, Kaldi tried the berries himself and felt a newfound sense of alertness and vitality.

Kaldi brought the berries to a local monk, who disapproved and threw them into a fire. The roasted beans gave off a pleasant aroma, prompting other monks to retrieve them from the embers, grind them, and mix them with water — creating what is thought to be the first cup of coffee.

The monks found the drink helped them stay awake and alert during long hours of prayer, and so coffee began to spread through monastic communities.

The more probably story of how Coffee spread all over the world

The more probable way coffee drinking became mainstream can be deciphered from the etymology: From Ethiopian ("Kaffa") → Arabic ("Qahwa") → Turkish ("Kahve") → European languages (e.g., English "Coffee", French "Café", Dutch "Koffie", German "Kaffee", Swedish 'Kaffe', Finnish "Kahvi" etc.)

Coffee (Coffea arabica) is native to Ethiopia, and the local Oromo people consumed the beans in early, traditional form — sometimes crushed and mixed with animal fat for an instant energy boost

By the 15th century, coffee was being cultivated in Yemen, in the Sufi monasteries of Mokha (a name later given to Mocha, the famous coffee variety). Sufi mystics used it to stay awake for night prayers.

From Yemen, coffee spread to the Ottoman Empire when it was first introduced to Istanbul (then Constantinople) around 1554. Two Syrian merchants, Hakama and Shams, opened the first coffeehouse in the Tahtakale neighbourhood of the city. These establishments were called “kahvehane”, from the Arabic "qahwa", meaning coffee. Soon, coffee became associated with spiritual alertness, as well as intellectual and social stimulation.

After the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, coffee was discovered in the abandoned camps of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha and later adopted by the Habsburg Austrians from where it took Europe by storm

How was coffee smuggled from Yemen to India in the 17th Century?

The story of how coffee beans were smuggled from Yemen to South India is one of adventure, disguise, and botanical intrigue. The central figure in this tale is a 17th-century Sufi saint named Baba Budan from Karnataka in South India, and his daring act helped break the Arab monopoly on coffee cultivation.

At the time, Arab traders in Yemen strictly controlled coffee cultivation and export.

To protect their monopoly, they only exported roasted or boiled beans, which were non-viable for planting. Smuggling live beans or fertile seeds was forbidden, under the penalty of death.

Baba Budan went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and travelled through Yemen, where he encountered Arabian coffee (Coffea arabica), already popular in Islamic culture. 

He allegedly hid seven fertile coffee beans (some say in his beard, others in his walking stick or clothes) and smuggled them out of Mocha, Yemen — then the world’s coffee hub — and returned to Chikmagalur in the Indian state of Karnataka.

Baba Budan planted the smuggled beans in the Chandra Drona Hills, which were later renamed Baba Budan Giri in his honour. The region’s cool climate and rich soil proved ideal for coffee cultivation.

This audacious act broke the Yemeni monopoly and introduced coffee cultivation to Asia outside Arabia and from this foothold, coffee eventually spread throughout South India under both Mughal and later British colonial influence.

My favourite Coffee tune

Manhattan Transfer consisting of Tim Hauser, Laurel Massé, Alan Paul, and Janis Siegel— became famous for their fusion of jazz, swing, pop, and oft 'a cappella' vocal harmonies.

Tim Hauser was the group's driving creative force who carefully curated their sound, arranging harmonies and choosing repertoire that fused old-school styles with contemporary edge. The group’s interpretation of “Java Jive", quickly became one of their signature tunes and remains my favorite homage to Coffee.