Coffee is enjoyed as an important part of the day for people all over the world, but its discovery as a delicious uplifting drink is centuries old. The name coffee is derived from the Arabic term kahway or Gahwa literally translated as that which prevents sleep.

At Multicafé we can tell you the story of  how it all began and what makes coffee so special.

The Story of Coffee

The Story of coffee bagan around 850 A.D. when an Abyssinian goat herder named Khalid noticed that while the afternoon sun made him drowsy, his flock frolicked and skipped about after nibbling at some berries. Khalid in turn either ate the berries whole, or ground and boiled them.

When his wife saw how energetic the normally exhausted Khalid was, she urged him to share this miraculous discovery with the local holy man at the monastery.

The chief monk did not share Khalid's enthusiasm. Declaring the berries "the work of the Devil," he flung them into a fire to banish their offending presence.

Soon the room filled with the delicious aroma of roasting berries, and other monks hurried in to discover the source of this new delight. The chief monk retrieved the smouldering berries, deposited them in water and instructed the other monks to sip the elixir.

As they drank it down heartily, they experienced the clarity and vigour Khalid had described. The brew was proclaimed a miracle and was then used to keep them awake during their evening prayers.

Coffee berries were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula, and were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. From there, coffee travelled to Turkey where coffee beans were roasted for the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed, and then boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage we enjoy today.

The first coffee houses were opened in Mecca, where coffee drinking was initially encouraged, and quickly spread throughout the Arab world. The coffee houses, which developed into luxuriously decorated places where music, dancing, chess and gossip could be enjoyed and business conducted, were subsequently suppressed when they became centres of political activity, although they were soon re-established .

Coffee houses spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for intellectual exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage, and forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity.

In the 1700s, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of a French infantry captain who nurtured one small plant on its long journey across the Atlantic.
This one plant, transplanted to the Caribbean Island of Martinique, became the predecessor of over 19 million trees on the island within 50 years. It was from this humble beginning that the coffee plant found its way to the rest of the tropical regions of South and Central America.

Coffee was declared the national drink of the then colonized United States by the Continental Congress, in protest of the excessive tax on tea levied by the British crown.

Espresso, a recent innovation in the way to prepare coffee, originated in 1822, with the innovation of the first crude espresso machine in France. The Italians perfected this machine and were the first to manufacture it. Espresso has become such an integral part of Italian life and culture, that there are now more than 200,000 espresso bars in Italy.

Today, coffee is a giant global industry. As a commodity, it ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars traded worldwide. If you can imagine, in Brazil alone, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants.

With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world's most popular drink.