History of Coffee - 1. Beginnings
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Time to read 6 min
"Let's Start At The Beginning, this is the history of coffee as I understand it."
We’re all involved in coffee for our own reasons. It can be your nerdy outlet, just a means to an end, or an entry point to a larger world of economics, politics, and science. For me, it’s all of the above, sometimes all in the same day, and while I can’t pinpoint exactly when this became more than a job, what I can say with absolute certainty is that understanding how we got here as an industry has opened my eyes to a world far beyond flat whites and banana bread. So let’s start at the beginning of everything. This is the history of coffee as I understand it. (1)
Coffee, like human life, originates from around the Rift Valley in East Africa, specifically Ethiopia. While some popular myths get bandied about - dancing goats in the 7th century, etc. - it’s difficult to say exactly when consumption began. Written evidence shows us that people were drinking/eating it from the 12th century onwards, but it feels lazy to start its story there.
What’s likely is that humans have consumed coffee since the dawn of our time, as George Dubya once said: “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”. I imagine that we grazed on the appealing red fruit, but just never made it a dietary or cultural staple. The thing is, coffee as a fruit… It’s ok. It’s pretty tasty and will give you a kick, but it would never be your go-to if you had an abundance of fleshier fruit to choose from. Even the stimulating benefits of eating coffee fruit are a bit nothingy, especially when you’ve got khat - a stronger natural stimulant still widely consumed across East Africa and Yemen today - growing next to it. So there it was with its appealing red fruit. Growing abundantly, but not doing much for anyone in a region with year-round ripening and powerful native 'uppers'.
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Buraq Khat Seller 2020 (01)
Ok, so what happened in the 12th century? Why did coffee go global? It seems likely that the answer lies with religion.
Ethiopia is one of the most fascinating and diverse places in terms of cultural history, with many local faiths, early adoption of Christianity, and key figures from the foundation of Islam migrating there in the 7th century. While it’s probable there has always been small-scale consumption of coffee by rural tribes, it’s the Islamic Sufi monks who first chewed it, brewed it, and built a recognisable culture around its consumption. What’s funny, and kind of cool, is the theological conversation that likely created the phenomenon.
Sufism is a form of Islam that particularly emphasises long prayer sessions, specifically through the darker hours “when the ego is quieter”, and like the mainstream faith, it clearly prohibits intoxication. These guys were trying to stay up all night without getting wasted. Many Sufis decided that khat crossed the line into haram, intoxicating rather than stimulating. The effects of coffee, on the other hand, allowed them to stay awake without spiralling into amphetamine euphoria. So you’ve got a bunch of devout Sufi monks messing around with coffee and staying up all night to pray in Ethiopia, and - although it won’t be officially categorised as halal until a couple centuries later - everyone’s having a good time with god on their side. (2)(3)
Sudanese Sufi Dervish - 1920s (02)
Trade between Ethiopia and Arabia was already commonplace, with spices, gold, ivory, and slaves moving across the strait, like, I dunno, espresso through a portafilter; it was only a matter of time before coffee jumped continents. Coffee was first cultivated in Yemen in the 15th century. The supply spread from there to Mecca, Cairo, Istanbul, and throughout the Islamic world. Interestingly, the Yemenis only exported processed or roasted coffee beans, securing themselves a monopoly on trade by not allowing seeds to germinate overseas. It’s a reach, but I’d say there are some parallels to draw between the early cultivators and the modern gatekeepers of the industry today.
The Yemenis were the first kings of coffee, benefiting from the monopoly their access to the plants had allowed them to establish. Coffee though, isn't like the secret formula for WD40 or Coca-Cola; it's a living thing with bushes and seeds. As production scaled to meet soaring demand, keeping coffee confined to Yemen became increasingly difficult - there are a couple of early records of coffee being cultivated in Asia. The popular story is that an Indian Sufi monk smuggled 7 seeds back from a pilgrimage to Mecca, and planted them in his garden in Karnataka, southern India. While that’s a wonderfully romantic story, and there’s circumstantial evidence to back it up, it’s not the moment that really kicked it off. The Dutch pioneered commercial coffee cultivation. (4)
See, the Dutch were pretty active in the Indian Ocean early on, giving them access to sea trade with the Arab peninsula. How they actually gained access to the cuttings is unclear, could’ve been some shady under-the-table deal, or just straight thievery. Either way, they started experimenting with planting Arabica in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as early as 1670.
Coffee and Indigo - Line Engraving 1706 (03)
In the early days coffee wasn’t a priority. There was interest in its potential for sure, but nobody really knew how big it could become. Acquiring and growing it was one thing, but turning it into a reliable export was another. Processing was inconsistent, cultivation knowledge was limited, so compared to the established spice trade coffee looked like a bit of a punt. That was set to change dramatically. (5)
Ok, so we’ve got the beginning. Ethiopia - monks - Yemen - Dutch East India Company. We’ve come all this way and only mentioned slavery once! Before we get into the weeds and white guilt, I just wanna rewind a second to think about Arabic coffee culture.
I’m writing this from my own - white, English-born - perspective, and it wasn’t until recently that I started to appreciate how deep coffee is in the Muslim world. Long before Europeans started planting it across the tropics, there was a rich culture surrounding its ritual consumption in the Arab Peninsula. Coffee traditions of the region place more emphasis on brewing, serving, and hospitality than they do on the product itself. Even as European powers began cultivating coffee elsewhere, much of the Islamic world remained focused on consumption and coffeehouse culture, rather than plantation agriculture and commercialisation.
Kinda makes you wonder...
How might the story of coffee be different, had it been shaped by the hands that first cultivated it?
What could the industry look like today?
Would the human cost of its journey to the modern era be so catastrophically high?
Coffee House Cairo, 1849 (04)
Footnote:
There are an increasing number of good Muslim-owned speciality coffee shops on the UK scene, many of them leaning into the aesthetics and hospitality of Middle Eastern coffee culture. I, for one, am a big fan of this. Whether intentional or not, these spaces feel closer to coffee's historic roots than the colder, minimalist ego temples that have dominated the last couple of decades.
Part 2: Dutch Masters In Java... Coming Soon.
Jasper Dumas
Well I'm pretty far down the coffee rabbit hole, so far that I can see the other side. The other side is the context around coffee, and the shaft of light is a future where I never need to make another Flat White.
Sources
• (1) Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (Chapter 1: "Coffee Colonises the World") https://anyflip.com/mhnd/mivs/basic/
• (2) Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Chapter 2: "The Coming of Coffee to the Near East") https://archive.org/stream/CoffeeAndCoffeehouses/%5BRalph_S._Hattox%5D_Coffee_and_Coffeehouses_The_Ori%28BookZZ.org%29_djvu.txt
• (3) Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Chapter 1: "The Great Coffee Controversy") https://archive.org/stream/CoffeeAndCoffeehouses/%5BRalph_S._Hattox%5D_Coffee_and_Coffeehouses_The_Ori%28BookZZ.org%29_djvu.txt
• (4) William H. Ukers, All About Coffee (Chapter: "Coffee in India") https://archive.org/details/allaboutcoffee00ukeruoft/page/226/mode/2up
• (5) David Van Reybrouck, Revolusi (Chapter 1)
Image Sources.
Header Image -
https://wellcomecollection.org/search/images?query=coffee#vqksbuug
1 - Burao Photo Gallery https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burao_qat_seller_(vertical).jpg
2 - US Libraray of congress https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sudan_Dervish_1920s.jpg
3. Wellcomecolleciton https://wellcomecollection.org/search/images?query=coffee#h9frfn8b
4.Wellcomecolleciton https://wellcomecollection.org/search/images?query=coffee#d69hbfrw
