Coffee Coffea arabica, coffea canephora (robusta), coffea stenophylla Coffee belongs to the family of ‘Whoeverthoughtofthatfirst?’. After all, it does take a leap or two to take the bitter berries of a small evergreen tree and turn it into a beverage, the demand for which has ensured a position in the World commodities market which is second only to oil. Legend attributes the first step to an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi in around the year AD 850: noticing that his goats started to act a little strangely, frolicking and dancing around, after eating the berries of a certain tree, he tried them himself and was thrilled to find that they evoked a feeling of exhilaration and well-being. Monks from a nearby monastery, noticing Kaldi’s antics, came and tried the berries too, and, finding that they were able to stay alert throughout their night-time prayers, spread the use of the berries throughout religious communities as a non-alcoholic stimulant. Its name is derived from the Arabic qahwah, originally a poetic word for wine, and its Turkish form, kahveh was gradually turned into the various European forms: café; caffé; kaffee; coffee. Cultivated from around the middle of the 6th century, it was treated as a medicine initially, and the earliest written record of it was in a work by the Arabian physician, Rhazes in the 10th century. The beans were eaten whole at first, then a fermented ‘wine’ made from the pulp appeared, followed by the precursor of our present day decoction in around 10th century. Roasting the beans before use was introduced in 13th century, and by the end of the 15th century, coffee had reached the whole of Islam, taken to the outer reaches of the empire by traders and pilgrims returning from Mecca. Coffee houses were opened where men could gather, talk, socialise and discuss business and politics. The first is thought to have appeared in Constaninople in the mid-16th century and reports started filtering through to Europe of, “a drink enjoyed in that city called coffa, made of the seed of the coava”. Unfortunately, other entertainments began to be offered too: dancing, music, singing and gambling. All frowned upon by Islam, also, the Imams realised that, despite not being an alcoholic beverage, coffee certainly was a stimulant and began to regard it with a good deal of suspicion. It didn’t help, either, that their mosque attendances seemed to be falling off whilst the coffee houses were filling up. Coffee, and the places where people gathered to enjoy it, started to be seen by the ‘Establishment’ as being subversive. In 1656 the Ottoman Grand Vizir Koprili prohibited coffee, decreeing that the punishment for a first violation should be a cudgelling and for the second that the perpertrator should be sewn into a leather bag and thrown into the Bosphorous. Dutch traders were the first to bring coffee to Europe. In 1616 the first stolen plant arrived in Holland and by the end of that century, the Netherlands East India Company had established plantations in their colonies in Indonesia and Ceylon. Strangely, Oxford claims the first coffee house to be opened in England, by Jacob, a Turkish Jew. In 1652, Pasqua Rosée opened the first public coffee house in St Michael’s Alley, in the City of London. Rosée invited potential clients to come and meet each other and enjoy the new beverage which, “quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome”. London took to the coffee houses, and such establishments as Jonathon’s, Button’s, Lloyds and Will’s became the meeting place for all professions within the City. Lloyd’s Coffee House, in Tower Street, became the place where the owners and insurers of commercial ships and their cargoes would meet in order to conduct business. Eventually, Lloyds Coffee House became the now famous insurance exchange, Lloyd’s of London. Throughout Europe the great coffee house phenomenon spread like wildfire - much to the chagrin of the more genteel female populace. In 1674 The Women’s Petition against Coffee was published. An anonymous pamphlet, it claimed that coffee made men, “Trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend all their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking, nauseaous puddle of water.” Across the Channel, too ladies were finding their gentlemen-folk’s preoccupation with this tarry drink more than a little mystifying, even to the extent of accusing coffee of reducing their menfolk’s libido.Their cause was more than happily backed by the wine merchants, seeing the growth in demand for this new drink as a serious competitor, and in 1695, a medical report was published by the École de Médecine in Paris, which warned that a regular intake of coffee would deprive men of their generative powers. However, despite such heavyweight opposition, the French persevered, their coffee houses evolving into the fashionable cafés which were to attract the patronage of some of the greatest names in Art in years to come. The fate of the English coffee houses was to be much more respectable for, as with Lloyds, most of the establishments which had caused so much early concern, developed into gentlemen’s clubs, exchanges and banks. The ladies of Germany. didn’t appear to agree with their European sisters and the drink was so popular that Johann Sebastian Bach composed his Kaffee-Kantate, gently mocking the drinking habits of the coffee-mad ladies of Leipzig. In Italy, the clergy joined forces against what they described as, “a drink from Satan’s followers”. They petitioned Pope Clement VIII, arguing that, as Islam had forbidden wine, the drink used in Holy Communion, Satan had to be behind this new evil from the East. Pope Clement, having demanded a taste first, replied that it was a shame to let the infidels have exclusive use of such a delicious drink and compromised by baptising it, explaining to the irate priests that he had thus cheated the Devil. In Venice, the Council of Ten tried to close down their city’s caffés, reasoning that they were dens of iniquity, although they can’t have been very successful as one of the most famous, Florian’s, is still going strong today. Frederick the Great of Prussia was so enraged at the amount of money being spent on ‘foreign’ coffee, and so leaving the state, that he issued a declaration that his people must drink beer instead. In 1781 he was to go even further, banning the roasting of coffee by any but the nobility, and then only that supplied by the State monopoly, hiring professional ‘sniffers’ to track down any illegal stashes. Coffee was taken to South America by a young French naval officer, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, who, having enjoyed the Paris coffee houses, obtained a seedling and, against all the odds, including a bad sea-trip and an irate fellow passenger, managed to plant it in his gardens in the French colony of Martinique. This one plant was destined to be the rootstock for all the estates in the West Indies and South America. Britain finally started cultivation in 1730, in Jamaica, and only introduced it into India in 1840, where their main focus had been the cultivation of tea. Brazil, too, whose name was eventually to become synonymous with coffee, came late into the picture. The story goes that a young Brazilian officer caught the eye of the Wife of the Governor of French Guiana on a visit in 1727. To show her admiration she presented the young man with a bouquet of flowers, within which was hidden a coffee plant. The plant duly arrived in neighbouring Brazil and, with the help of Roman Catholic missionaries, cultivation was spread throughout that country. In the 19th century a terrible leaf disease hit the plantations in Asia, giving Brazil the impetus required to shoot to the top of the production table, a position which it still holds today, supplying more than half the world’s coffee. The area that consumes more coffee than anyone else in the world is, surprisingly, not the United States, but Scandinavia, where they get through an amazing 612 cups per person, per year - the average in Britain is a mere 34 cups per head. Coffea arabica is the most widely grown variety, growing above a height of 3,000ft (900m), between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Coffee plantations start production after their third year, productivity increasing up to their fifteenth year then falling off. The plant produces rip e fruits several time during the year, with both blossoms and berries alongside each other,at varying stages of maturity, on the same tree. This means that constant picking is required, each tree producing roughly 2lb of green berries per year. The substance in coffee which Kaldi and his dancing goats found so invigorating was, of course, caffeine, the alkaloid which gives coffee its kick and aroma, and which is also found, in smaller quantities, in tea and chocolate. Researchers at Oxford University have also found that it may play a part in speeding up the pain-killing effect of the drug, ibuprofen. Patients who had surgery for impacted molars were given 100mg or 200mg of caffeine with their ibuprofen and it was found that they had significantly more relief an hour or so later than those who had received ibuprofen alone. Caffeine also stimulates the heart and central nervous system, enhances mental performance, stimulates the production of digestive juices in the stomach, aiding digestion and also dilates the air passages in the lungs. Both ordinary and decaffeinated coffee contain antioxidants which can protect against ageing, cancer and heart disease, but strong coffee which has been made by methods such as cafetière has been shown to raise blood cholesterol levels. Unfortunately, the caffeine in coffee, (and tea), also acts as a diuretic, causing the body to lose water and flushing away valuable minerals such as calcium and high caffeine intakes have been associated with osteoporosis, which is a major cause of the weakening of bones in post-menopausal women.. It is also addictive, and in high amounts can cause tremors, sweating and palpitations. Sudden withdrawal, however, can cause severe headaches, lethargy and irritability. 1teaspoon of instant coffee has an energy value of 2 kcalories, 190ml (average cup) of freshly ground coffee provides 4 kcalories.