How Coffee became popular
Let’s take a trip back in time and look at the many coffee milestones along the way. We are sure that there are many more than the ones we put down but we’ve picked the nuggets that we think are interesting. Coffee has had a great run through the ages – a romantic run we would think and it is only going from strength to strength.
Well, it all goes back to over 1000 years ago when some tribe in Ethiopia realized what a kick the berries of the coffee tree gave them So they ground it, mixed it with animal fat and took it along with them to pop into their mouths wherever they were tired. From there to Arabia was a short step and it was here that coffee began to be cultivated. From there, coffee spread to Constantinople, Turkey and Mecca. The Italian traders brought this wonder bean to the West and thanks to the Pope liking it so much, it became an accepted beverage. Coffee, with its immense potential for sales became colored with the intrigue of politics and money.
It soon traveled across the seas to England and America. In London, coffeehouses became the place for erudite discussions and in America, it became the country’s morning drink. From way back then in the seventeenth century, coffee just grew and one saw many more coffee houses open all over the world. It was probably in Vienna that the brew was first filtered, sweetened and had milk added to it. Coffee plantations were set up in the East by Western nations and the one in the Far East gave it the name ‘Java’.
The high point of the coffee culture in Germany must surely be when Bach composed his musical ode to coffee! In America of course, the Boston Tea party set the seal to coffee becoming the national beverage. Slowly, the age of roasted-ground-packed coffee began and from here to ‘instant’ in the beginning of the twentieth century was a short step. Soon, major coffee companies came into being in the 20th century and the US zoomed through to becoming the world’s largest coffee importer.
From coffee to coffee brands, to coffee filters and coffee making machines. Suddenly the coffee industry became a major money spinner. Today the coffee shop is an ubiquitous part of modern day culture. And without our morning cup of coffee, how many would come awake to each new day? Like all good stories, it goes on and on and on, its aroma giving people joy around the globe.