The legend goes that Ethiopian shepherds as early as the 9th century first noticed the stimulating effects of the coffee berries when they saw their goats becoming frisky and dancing after eating them. One popular account is of a shepherd named Kaldi who took the beans to a holy man in a nearby monastery. The holy man disapproved and threw them into the fire.
Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of roasting beans, and the other monks became intrigued. In order to preserve their goodness the Monk ordered the remains be collected and covered with hot water. That night the monks sat up drinking the rich and fragrant brew, and from that day vowed they would drink it daily to keep them awake during their long, nocturnal devotions.
While the legends attempt to condense the discovery of coffee and its development into a beverage into one story, it is more likely that the monks chewed on the berries as a stimulant for centuries before it was brewed as a hot drink. The earliest credible evidence of coffee being roasted, brewed and drunk as a hot beverage comes from the middle of the fifteenth century. Much later coffee was brought into Europe through Venice and became available in England by the 16th Century. Having fought off it’s many religious opponents coffee survived to become the world’s most popular non alcoholic drink. It’s reported that more than 400 billion cups are consumed each year and only oil is a more traded commodity.
