A Five Gun Salute to the Origins of Coffee
Coffee, red coffee cherries, originate in the cloud forests of Ethiopia.
It brings to the drinker a sprightliness of spirit and a sense of mental well-being. — Ibn ‘Abd al-Ghaffar
It brings to the drinker a sprightliness of spirit and a sense of mental well-being. — Ibn ‘Abd al-Ghaffar
Within the coffee cherry, two seeds or beans (one if a peaberry, en español caracolillo), roasted, has spread around the world to become one of the most valuable traded commodities. We may pay three dollars for a cappuccino, the price paid for green coffee beans is determined by commodity markets in London and New York, the grower, if commodity coffee, lucky to see three cents a kilo of green beans.
When I visit my friend’s farm, we are in the cloud forests of El Teide. I have thought, why not coffee? But if we planted, it would be ten years before we see a crop. Coffee is grown on Gran Canaria.
The cloud forests, the trees scrub water out of the clouds, it drips from their branches. Magical to pass through.
In the podcast the arrival of coffee in Arabia quickly glossed over, too quickly. Brought in by the Sufis from Yemen in the mid-15th century as part of their religious devotions. It would though have needed more to penetrate society. Merchants saw an opportunity, but it would not have been enough to simply bring in coffee, pile sacks of coffee in the market, no demand, what to do with it. Kiosks were established in markets to serve coffee, then coffee shops and more luxurious coffee houses, with fountains, shade of trees, often by a river.
In Arabia, coffee effected cultural change. It provided a meeting place, in addition to the mosque and the market, it was a place to socialise. Also a place to hatch plots.
Two Syrians took coffee to Istanbul, as a ready made off-the-shelf package, opened coffee shops.
According to the Ottoman chronicler Ibrahim Pecevi: (1574–1560) coffee and the coffee house was introduced to Istanbul by two Syrians Hakm and Shams around 1556.
Mocha became wealthy on coffee, in essence they held a monopoly.
In Turkey, drinking of coffee elevated almost to an art form.
In its introduction into the Middle East, coffee was never a mere beverage. It was the subject of fatwas, legal treatise, edicts, a psychoactive substance, an affront to the Koran, a commodity to speculate upon, coffee houses, places to socialise, hatch plots, exchange news, coffee shops to be closed, burnt to the ground.
I agree Dark Woods an excellent roastery but for their single origins, not their espresso blends, for espresso blends I would look elsewhere. In Sheffield they have something of a local monopoly, South Street Kitchen, Motore Coffee, Union Street.
Dark Woods is located in an old Victorian Mill, on a canal in the Pennines in the middle of nowhere.
The podcast needs an accompanying blog for each episode. With sound, one can only visualise the internal structure of a coffee cherry, a cloud forest, the terraces in Yemen.
A recent news item of Saudi genocide in Yemen (UK supplies the weapons), showed a town perched on a mountain top, cascading terraces.
Coffee from Yemen nigh impossible to obtain and until recently, no one wanted, as poor quality.
The terraces are used for growing qat ( Catha edulis), a narcotic close relative of coffee, far more profitable than growing coffee, qat even has its own UN designation.
I am curious the terraces. In Tenerife, similar terrace system, water tanks store the water, channels run along the walls, distribute the water to the terraces. A stalk from banana tree used to close a channel. A complex cooperative scheme for water distribution.
Ethiopia, from where coffee originated.
- Guji Sewana washed — Ethiopia — DT Coffee Roastery
- Anasora Farm natural — Ethiopia — Cartwheel Coffee
- Koke natural — Ethiopia — Outpost Coffee
- Duromina washed — Ethiopia — Outpost Coffee
- Aricha Yirgacheffe natural — Ethiopia — Coffee Gems
- Zege Forest washed — Ethiopia — Coffee Link
- Yirgacheffe washed — Ethiopia — Coffee Link
- Shantawene washed — Ethiopia — Assembly Coffee
- Musa Aba Lulesa Bashasha natural — Ethiopia — Paul’s Coffee Roasters
- Moplaco Yirgacheffe washed — Ethiopia — Mokka
- Moplaco Sidamo honey — Ethiopia — Mokka
- Hariti Guji Sidamo washed — Ethiopia — Taf
- To-La Yirgacheffe washed — Ethiopia — Taf
- Guji natural — Ethiopia — Taresso
- Foge Yirgacheffe washed — Ethiopia — Roller Roasters
- Gedeb Mekuria Merga washed — Ethiopia — Roller Roasters
- Geisha 1931 Surma washed — Ethiopia — Roller Roasters
- Koromii Guji natural — Ethiopia — Five Elephant
- Tabe Burka Guji natural — Ethiopia — The Barn
- Dimtu Tero Farm washed — Ethiopia — 19 grams
Contemporary writers in Medieval Arabia saw coffee as coming from Yemen. It may also have come from Ethiopia and one writer did mention Ethiopia. Trade routes passed through Ethiopia. To reach Arabia, the coffee passed through Mocha.
One of the most influential 16th century writers on coffee, Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri (fl 1558), after speaking of the introduction of coffee to Yemen, cautions his readers:
We say [that this account pertains to] the Yemen alone [lit not anywhere else] because the appearance of coffee [was] in the land of Ibn Sa’d al-Din and the country of Abyssinians and of the Jabart, and of other places of the land of the Ajam, but the land of its first [use] is unknown, nor do we know the reason.
Of consideration to contemporary writers, was not the origin of coffee, their main focus was to establish when and where coffee came into Arabia, and equally important, by whom and for what reason it was introduced.
Contemporary Arab writers have no myth of dancing goats (introduced later by Europeans as an embellishment), they do though have a myth and treat as a myth, of Solomon using coffee for medicinal use on the command of the angel Gabriel.
Contemporary accounts agree on two points:
- coffee came from Yemen
- coffee used by Sufis as part of their religious devotions
Carolus Linnaeus attributed coffee to Arabia, Coffea arabica.
The mountainous terraces of Yemen where coffee was grown, were remote then, are remote today, were not the centre of the Medieval Arab Islamic world. It is thus not inconceivable coffee would have been consumed for centuries before word of coffee spread to Arabia.
Sufis were not a monastic order, they were members of the local community, part of wider society, had day jobs. If coffee was of use in the dhikr as a psychoactive drug, would it not have its use getting through the tedium of the day, the wife or servants asked to brew a pot of coffee?
Writing in the early 16th century Fakhr al-Din ibn Abi Yazid al-Makki writes:
And as for us, qishr reached us in Rey in Mecca and other places twenty or more years ago, but qahwa made from it did not spread until the end of the ninth [fifteenth] century.
Coffee was on sale in the streets outside the mosque.
- qishr: husks of the coffee bean or a beverage made exclusively from the husks.
- qahwa: coffee; more precisely stimulating beverage made from the fruit of Coffee arabica.
- qahwa bunniya: beverage made from the kernels (bunn) or from the husks and kernels.
- qahwa qishriya: beverage made exclusively from the husks.
- bunn: coffee beans; specifically the kernel as opposed to the husk.
Coffee was on sale in the streets outside the mosques.
The spread of coffee from Yemen into Arabia, from the Sufis, to the streets outside the mosque, to the home, in public, two decades, maybe a mere decade.
Jaziri tells us:
[After the spread of coffee to Egypt and its brisk consumption in the precincts of the Azhar] the situation continued along these lines: much coffee was drunk in the quarter of the mosque; it was sold openly in a multitude of places. In spite of the long time [that it had been drunk], not a soul gave a thought of interfering with coffee drinkers nor did anyone find fault with the drink either in itself or because of factors [associate with but] external to it, such as passing the cup around and the like. All this was in spite of the fact that it had become widespread in Mecca, and was drunk in the Sacred Mosque itself, so that there was scarcely a dhikr or observance of the Prophet’s birthday ( mawlid) where coffee was not present.
We know coffee was well established in Mecca by 1511 due to an edict issued by a local governor regarding suspicious characters gathered to drink coffee. Kha’ir Beg, pasha of of the Malmuks in Mecca and muhtasib of the town, happened upon a group one night drinking coffee. As he approached they extinguished their lanterns and ran away. He called a meeting the following day of scholars and jurists to rule on gatherings to drink coffee and of coffee itself.
I may care to drink craft beer but I may object to the drunken scum in binge-drinking bars.
The activities coffee drinkers were permitting were like taverns where consumption of wine took place. Coffee was not forbidden by the Koran, unlike wine, indeed, if created by God, who was Man to decide it could not be consumed? Coffee though a grey area, not explicitly forbidden, on the other hand, if a psychoactive substance, should it not be treated as alcohol?
Such distinctions and controversies were not restricted to Mecca in 1511, coffee periodically forbidden, the prohibitions ignored, then rescinded.
The arrival of coffee and especially the coffee shop and coffee house, was to have great impact on society and economic life.
Were the clientele of a specialty coffee shop today to hop on a H G Wells time machine and pedal back to a coffee shop or coffee house in Medieval Arabia they would not find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. The main difference being the serving of undrinkable coffee.
Please obtain Coffee: A Global History from Blackwell’s. Support independent bookshops not Amazon. Or, with indie bookshops closed, order Coffee: A Global History via Bookshop.Org an on-line portal for indie bookshops. But please note on-line service by Blackwell’s appalling, long wait for book to arrive.
Checking out the farms, a good idea, but please do not direct to or promote Instagram, more data for facebook to steal and abuse.
To enjoy your coffee, need to buy fresh roasted coffee from specialty coffee shop or reputable coffee roastery. Always buy coffee beans, freshly grind each time brew.
Invest in a quality hand grinder or electric grinder, cheap grinders a waste of money.
Hand grinders in ascending price range: Rhino, CrushGrind, Knock, Comandante.
Electric grinder: Niche Zero.
To brew filter coffee: V60, swan-neck kettle, digital scales, or an Origami.
To brew espresso: 9Barista, cheap domestic machines a waste of money, unreliable, cheapest semi-pro machine La Marzocco linea mini.
Water: Cannot brew coffee with tap water, use bottled spring water or a water filter. Minimum, Brita water filter, or better and designed for coffee Peak water filter.
Once indie coffee shops reopen, please support. And please show respect for the coffee, relax with served in glass or ceramic. And if not busy, have a chat with the barista.
Read
- The Devil’s Cup
- Where the Wild Coffee Grows
- The Monk of Mocha
- Coffee and Coffee Houses
- Tastes of Paradise
- The World Atlas of Coffee
Listen
- Slavery, Suffering and Affordable Luxury
- Coffee — a Hellish Brew, The History of Coffee
- The Muhammadan Bean: The Secret History of Islam and Coffee
- In Our Time: Coffee
A History of Coffee a collaboration between James Harper of Filter Stories podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of Coffee: A Global History.
