When I first started “getting into” coffee, my thoughts naturally drifted to its beginnings: Where it originally came from, how it was discovered, and who thought to drink it. Over the years I have learned a few things about the origins of coffee.
While the true origins of coffee are obscured by the passage of time, there are plenty of apocryphal (maybe a little too good to be true) stories and legends about it. My favorite origin story is the one about Kaldi the Goatherd who reportedly discovered coffee thanks to some lost, dancing goats. But there are more tales. Here’s what I found.
The Oromos tribesmen
The Legend of Kaldi the Goatherd
Rhazes
Another Goat Legend
Coffee is for the birds
The Prophet Mohammed
King Solomon
The Dervish Omar
FAQs
The Oromo tribesmen
Let’s go all the way back… Coffee is a plant native to Ethiopia and has been known to the Oromo tribesmen of the region for centuries. For them, coffee was more of a staple crop. They didn’t roast and drink it; they rolled ground coffee cherries, seed and all, with animal fat into balls to create a sort of “energy bar.” This allowed them to extend their work time and enhance their ability to travel long distances.
The Oromo have two myths about the origin of coffee. One says that coffee was one of the first things brought to the earth from heaven. The other, better legend says that Waaqa, the supreme sky god, punished one of his favorite warriors with death (another version has him mourning over an ancestor), and upon visiting the grave, tears dropped from his eyes. The plant that emerged from the ground on this spot was coffee. The Oromos hold that all other plants are watered by rain, but coffee is watered with the tears of god. He is my pick for “The God of Coffee,” but you might want to select from several other candidates. Or maybe you just want to find out about Drogo, the patron saint of coffee.
The Oromiya word for coffee is “bunna.” This is a little linguistic thing that I think sheds light on the evolution of coffee into a beverage.
The Legend of Kaldi the Goatherd
I have read a number of variations of this legend. All of them are similar, and many of the details are the same in each.
My favorite version takes us back to the year 850 CE (or AD if you prefer). Kaldi was a young goat herder in charge of the family’s many goats. As you probably know, a goatherd’s primary job is to keep the herd together and safe from harm. Well, Kaldi was only so-so at this, and watching goats just walking around and eating can be kind of boring. One day he fell asleep and, upon waking, found himself rather goat-less. He searched for a long time, getting more and more worried. He finally found them in a far-off area they had never gone before.
Oh no!
What he saw elevated the worry into a panic. The goats were eating leaves and red berries from a tree he had never before seen. They were also dancing about wildly. Convinced that the fruit must be poison, he somehow managed to move the agitated herd away from the possibly deadly bushes. There was nothing left to do but hope for the best while expecting the worst. When the goats finally calmed down and did not die, he figured that he was the luckiest goatherd around.
Dancing with the Goats
Sometime later, once again fighting off sleep because of the boredom, he remembered the red berries from the strange bushes and their effect on the goats. Trying one for himself, he found the fruit tolerable and ended up eating a handful. The surge of energy he felt helped keep him alert, and he was soon dancing along with the goats.
Everyone Must Know
Excited by his discovery (in another version, Kaldi was a goatherd, but not a boy; in that story, his wife encouraged him), he decided to take the berries to the local Imam and to tell him about his discovery. The Imam, upon hearing about dancing goats and strange energy, determined that the fruits must be the work of the devil and threw them into the fire. Soon the monastery was filled with the intoxicating aroma of roasting coffee, bringing the other monks to investigate. A little grinding into powder and mixing with water, and voilà! Coffee.
A Note From Tim
I spent most of a decade farming Kona coffee on The Big Island of Hawaii. There is something poetic about Kona sitting almost exactly on the opposite side of the planet from the Ethiopian highlands where Kaldi and his goats discovered the plant that would change the world.
The journey coffee has made, from its discovery in Ethiopia through the Arabian Peninsula, through Europe (and India). Then, the fateful journey of Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, who in 1723 brought the first coffee tree to the New World, planting it in Martinique. Descendants of that tree make up almost the entire population of Latin American coffee. In 1828, Reverend Samuel Ruggles brought cuttings from coffee trees in Brazil to the Kona coast. That’s over 13,000 miles (21,000 km) from where it started (as the crow flies; the actual distance is even further). That’s more than halfway around the planet! And yet the plant, the process, and the love of the beverage are all recognizably the same.
Rhazes
In the original version of this article, I wrote
I have recently found some information about a 9th-century Persian physician named Rhazes who may have been using coffee to treat patients. But then again, he must have learned the technique from somewhere... more to come as I find it!
Well, I found more. 😉 Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, known to the Western world as Rhazes (865–925 CE), was a true polymath and is widely considered one of the historically great early physicians. He collected medical works from around the world and actually tested them, rendering his own opinions. His manuscripts were used as primary medical texts during the medieval period in Europe.
Working within a century of the Kaldi legend, Rhazes suggested a treatment of “buncham,” declaring it good for the stomach and that
“It is a drink that is good for those with hot nature, but it decreases the libido.”
The word “buncham” signified a drink made with coffee beans, not with the plant material, “bunn” being the arabic word for the plant and beans.
Another Goat Legend
This story comes from Yemen, just across the Red Sea from the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, which later became Ethiopia. Although now devastated by war, Yemen traders cornered the coffee trade through the port of Mocha for almost a thousand years. It is only natural that their story about the origin of coffee points to someone from their own past.
The Learned Imam
As the story goes, there was a Muslim monastery that had a herd of goats. One day, the goatherd complained to the Imam that he was unable to stay awake during prayers because he was not getting good sleep. Sometimes the goats in his care would stay awake and active all night, which meant he was also awake all night. The Imam was a learned man and suspected that something that the goats were eating was keeping them awake.
Investigation
Visiting the flock, he noticed some shrubs from which the goats had been eating both the leaves and fruit. He took a branch from one of the shrubs back to his library to see if he could identify it. There was no reference to it. It occurred to him that although they were wild now, the shrubs appeared to have been originally planted in rows. Further research led him to believe that the Queen of Sheba might have brought some of the plants with her when she visited King Solomon (Sheba is believed to be in modern-day Yemen, in the 10th century, BCE). Intrigued, he decided to try eating them.
Experimentation
He certainly found the red berries pleasant enough, but there was not really much in the way of fruit. Clearly, this would not have been the reason to cultivate the plants. The seeds, as they were, were unappetizing. He then tried crushing and boiling the fruits and seeds. The seeds didn’t bulk up, and the resulting porridge was nothing special. Knowing that roasted grains were often more appetizing, he tried putting some in the embers of his fire, where they promptly gave off that delicious aroma we all know. He crushed the kernels and again made a thick, bitter potion which he sweetened with honey.
After tasting this mixture, his heart began beating so fast that he had to lie down… but he did not fall asleep. In fact, he stayed awake and was even alert for the late-night prayers. Sharing his potion with the other monks, they all experienced the same “miracle.”
Coffee is for the birds
Two different Islamic holy men, Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili and Sheikh Umar, lay claim to having seen especially energetic birds. Trying some of the same berries and feeling energized themselves, they spread the word. I have found no further corrobarating information on these claims, just variations on these phrases repeated on the internet.
The Prophet Mohammed
According to this story, the Archangel Gabriel brought the sick Mohammed a bowl of hot dark liquid which restored his health and strengthened his spirit. In another version, it was before a decisive battle when Mohammed received his cup of coffee from the angel Gabriel. This gave him the stamina “to dismount 40 warriors and mount 40 women.”
King Solomon
Besides the aforementioned possibility that The Queen of Sheba brought coffee as part of her gift caravan to King Solomon, there is another story in which Gabriel also figures. King Solomon entered a plague-ridden town and, under the Archangel’s orders, brewed a pot of coffee to cure them.
The Dervish Omar
Omar was a healer who came to Mocha. He eventually was called upon to heal the daughter of the sheik. Falling in love, he decided that she was the girl for him, which did not sit well with the sheik. He was banished from the town and found himself starving in the wilderness. When he came upon a bush with red berries, he ate them out of desperation. Strengthened by the discovery, he was able to survive. When folks from the town followed him for his healing skills, he provided them a drink made of his new discovery. As word got back to the town, he was eventually allowed to return. The beverage proved so popular that Omar was eventually showered with honors and was rewarded by the Caliph with a palace.
Tim’s Take
So, as you can see, there are plenty of stories to go around. Whether any of these stories are true or not, history shows us that the Sufi monks of Yemen did popularize DRINKING coffee. Coffee is now a worldwide beverage, and any culture that has a long history with it wants to claim its discovery as its own. Pick the story you like best and go with that.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About The Origin of Coffee
I suspect it has to do with the geopolitical situation at the time of coffee spreading out of Arabia and into Europe. Coffee being deeply entrenched in Arabian and therefore Muslim culture put it at odds with Christianity. To the thinking of the time, Muslim meant anti-Christian and anti-Christian meant Satanic. Obviously. 🙄 I covered Pope Clement’s ingenious plan to baptise coffee to make it safe to drink in my article, “21 Times Coffee Was Illegal.”
Coffee is native to Ethiopia on the continent of Africa. Brasil, in South America, is the largest grower of coffee, and the United States is the largest importer.
The answer depends on what you mean by instant coffee! There is a long history, dating back to the 1700s, of people looking for a way to shortcut the preparation time of their morning cuppa. For the history of instant coffee specifically: who invented it, and when and how it became the world’s most convenient cup, read this in-depth article.