Posted on Jan 26, 2012
Throughout much of the history repeated here, of course, the coffee being traded was single origin coffee. Before the Industrial Revolution, there was no way to mass produce or transport enough coffee that any other option would become available. But as time went on, the methods and geographical locations of cultivation contributed to the development of different varieties of coffee, which meant that the origin of the coffee beans themselves had an impact on the taste of the coffee you were brewing. This might seem like common sense to coffee addicts today – who have access to coffee beans of different types and different roasts from all over the world – but only a few centuries ago this would have been considered a new development. Perhaps the first different popular variety of coffee separate from the basic Arabica variety began on an island off of the east coast of Madagascar known as the Isle of Bourbon – also known as Reunion in French. When coffee was cultivated there, it actually produced coffee beans that were smaller – so significantly, in fact, that this became known as a different variety of Arabica known as “Bourbon.” Different types of coffees grown in Mexico and Brazil were actually the “descendants,” if you will, of this Bourbon coffee, which contributed to a greater variety in flavor and texture of coffee depending on where in the world the coffee was grown. That’s why Bourbon coffee is one of the first instances that the idea of single-origin coffee. Brazil’s natural coffee-friendly climate (as well as a number of other factors like altitude and soil that will be explored in the section on South America) eventually led to its dominance in the coffee trade in portions of the 19th and 20th...
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Posted on Jan 23, 2012
Much of the Arabian history is well documented because of the work of Abd Al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who wrote a comprehensive treatise on the subject in 1587. This work reported that in Arabia, coffee was first used for its energizing purposes in Aden, which is not far from Mocha. Mocha’s location in Yemen puts it smack-dab on the southwest coast of the Arabian Peninsula, right across the Red Sea from Africa and the Middle Age regions of northwestern Ethiopia. This made exportation of coffee beans from its native Ethiopia to the Arabian world quite easy, and the bean found its way into the Arabian subcontinent through both Yemen and Egypt. Once discovered in Arabia, it was then roasted and brewed so that it took the appearance of coffee that we would today recognize as the beverage. Needless to say, its energizing effects proved to make coffee a favorite morning beverage, as noted by the German physician Leonhard Rauwolf in the 16th century who had taken a trip to the Near East. Mocha, in Yemen, was the world capital of coffee between the 15th and 17th centuries – and even after coffee had spread farther the Mocha bean enjoyed an enduring popularity that continues to this day. However, it’s no surprise that the energizing beverage started to produce some “buzz” and eventually spread to other places in the Middle East, as well as regions as far-ranging as Persia and Turkey to North Africa. After encountering the bean first in Ethiopia, coffee growers in Yemen started cultivating the plant in Arabia. It was rarely exported over long distances from Yemen – and when it was, it was usually boiled in order to remain sterilized. In the 17th century, as legend has it, a Sufi named Baba Budan smuggled a few fresh coffee beans (which, as you’ll remember, are actually the pits of the seeds) to India for the purposes of cultivation – an event that could have contributed to the further spread of coffee throughout the world and the decline of Mocha as the coffee “capital” of the...
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Posted on Jan 23, 2012
Considering that coffee’s emergence in Europe also coincided with the expansion of Europe into the New World – that is, the newly-discovered North and South Americas – it’s no surprise that coffee did not take a long time to spread to what was essentially across the globe. In fact, it was the discovery of some of these lands (as well as new discoveries constantly being made during the Age of Exploration) that revealed to Europeans that much of the land in the Americas was well-suited for growing coffee. For example, a man named Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seeds to Martinique in the Caribbean in the early 18th century and it turned out that the climate, altitude, and soil were ideal for growing coffee. This lead to coffee seeds being spread throughout the Caribbean, including Hispaniola, Mexico, and throughout the Caribbean islands. As the influence of coffee grown in the Americas became more and more significant, coffee became a product that helped contribute to the existence of companies like the British and Dutch East India Companies. Though the spice trade still often dominated the demand for international waterways, coffee was a dependable product that helped spur further exploration and cultivation of the Americas. The cultivation of coffee throughout the Americas continued over the centuries, especially as certain countries like Brazil earned their independence and had a greater reliance on homegrown resources to spur economic growth. Though coffee was first introduced to Brazil in 1727, for example, the cultivation did not begin in full force until Brazil gained its independence in the early 19th...
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Posted on Jan 19, 2012
From this point, the spread of coffee is difficult to track along a linear storyline – that’s how quickly coffee’s popularity started taking off. Coffee found an entry point into Europe by way of Italy, which would open its first official coffee house the mid-17th century, and moved as far east as Indonesia. Coffee was also brought to the Americas as the exploration of the New World continued. The first historical European mention of coffee comes from the aforementioned German Leonhard Rauwolf in 1573. A Sidenote in History: Coffee and Pope Clement VIII Coffee’s spread in Europe was largely due to it being accepted as a Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII – an issue for many Europeans that had prevented the beverage spreading even more quickly. In fact, Pope Clement VIII had been beseeched by counselors to decry the coffee as a “bitter invention of Satan.” Pope Clement VIII’s response was apparently that “This devil’s drink is so delicious…we should cheat the devil by baptizing it.” (Again, as with many historical coffee anecdotes, it’s important to take this with a grain of salt). Either way, coffee did receive legitimization in the Christian world (a legitimization that eluded the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for sometime) which means Europe was soon flooded with the drink. A major port between North Africa and the Middle East, Venice, was a crucial entry point for coffee, which helps explain why Italy’s first coffee house would be opened there in the middle of the 17th century. Not long after Pope Clement VIII’s declaration, a Dutch merchant named Pieter van der Broecke brought coffee shrubs from Mocha and planted them in the Amsterdam Botanical gardens, where the coffee actually flourished. By the time Leonhard Rauwolf was writing about coffee in Europe in the 16th century, it had already made its way up to England through the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company. Coffeehouses exploded in England during the 17th century, as many cafes such as “The Grand Café” in Oxford (which still stands today, though it now focuses on wine) were created off of supplies from coffee...
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Posted on Jan 16, 2012
Perhaps the first thing single-origin coffee novices need to learn about African-grown coffee is the difference between Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, the two species of coffee-growing plants or shrubs that essentially divide the entire coffee world into two. (Site note: “Robusta” is technically one variety of Coffea canephora, with the other variety being Nganda, which is why it is not scientificially classified as “Coffea Robusta”). Most people worldwide prefer Arabica coffee – about 80% of the world’s coffee comes from this plant rather than Coffea canephora. Though much of the world’s Robusta coffee is now produced in Vietnam, Robusta is also produced in areas like Africa and Brazil. Africa, specifically, devotes a lot of its coffee production to Robusta coffee, with countries like Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, and Madagascar focusing mainly on Robusta production. (A majority of the other countries, like Brazil, will produce both types of coffee, though a few do focus more heavily on simply cultivating Arabica). It’s not hard to tell why this might make a difference for pursuers of single origin African coffee: if you like Robusta over Arabica coffee, then you’re more likely to pursue a single origin coffee that originated from a single origin in Africa. A Quick Note: Understanding Robusta Coffee Since Africa is so heavily-focused on Robusta coffee (at least relative to other conteinents), it’s worth making a special note on how Robusta coffee is grown. Typically, Robusta coffee is produced at lower altitudes, for one, and because of its higher caffeine content, is generally more resistant to disease. Despite these factors, the flavor of Arabica is generally considered superior to that of Robusta – even if individual opinions may vary. Although both types of coffee beans have their “good” and “bad” varieties – as all foods and produce products are bound to have – generally most coffee lovers tend to lean toward using Arabica beans. With some 20% of the coffee market, however, it is apparent that Robusta has a place. Issues like cost, individual tastes, and how companies produce large amount of multi-origin coffees (in our eyes, this is a no-no) keep demand for Robusta relatively – and pardon the pun – robust. Much of the vacuum-packed coffee you find in supermarkets is actually Robusta thanks to the high yield of Robusta in top-exporting countries like Vietnam and Brazil; Robusta is cheaper to acquire. Specialty coffees typically are from Arabica beans, however it’s important to remember that some roasters “dilute” the impact of Arabica beans with Robusta...
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Posted on Jan 12, 2012
The origin of the world’s first single-origin coffee (and, really, the first coffee anywhere) comes from northeast Ethiopia, where legend states that a goat-herder named Kaldi noticed one of his goats chewing on a coffee bean and experiencing its now-famed energizing effects. Though this story supposedly occurred in the 9th century, there is no real evidence that northeastern Ethiopia was even aware of coffee earlier than about the 17th century. The truth is that the further we rewind the clocks on coffee, the more hazy the story of its discovery becomes. Another account traces coffee’s beginnings to Sheik Omar, an exile who had to turn to eating the berries of a nearby plant and eventually discovered that by boiling them, the brown liquid that resulted made him feel energized. The best evidence suggests that coffee was first brewed in the Arabian peninsula in the Mokha region of Yemen (yes, this region is responsible for the Mocha bean – but more about that later). There are definitive historical accounts that speak about the coffee brewed in this region beginning in the 1400s, with the popularity of coffee spreading throughout the Middle East within some two hundred years. According to another legend, the famous Italian explorer, Marco Polo, encountered some Mocha beans in his exploration – even though he didn’t travel to Yemen. Instead, the story goes that Marco Polo was staying in Tyre (modern-day Lebanon) when he came across a merchant who was in possession of some of the Mocha beans. In the story, Polo brought these beans back with him to Europe, though it is now known that coffee did not become prominent in Europe for at least another century or...
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