Unveil the mystery of coffee allusions

Who first thought of roasting the seeds of coffee trees? And why?

There is no doubt that we will never get the real answer to these two questions. Like other most famous foods in the world, coffee is very vague in the early history of human civilization and the source of its products. We must reason from the scattered handwritten references from the 15th and 16th centuries in the Middle East in order to have a rough idea of the cause of Guzhong.

Europeans first drank coffee in coffee shops in Syria, Egypt, Turkey and other places in the 16th century, and saw coffee bean seeds for the first time on mountain terraces in the southernmost Yemen region of the Arabian Peninsula. The more he was accompanied at that time, the botanist Linnaeus began to name and classify all kinds of flowers and plants in this new century, where coffee trees were classified as "Coffea Arabica".

Arabica coffee beans have been the only commercial tree for centuries and are still the mainstream of the world coffee trade. However, according to Linaius' hypothesis, the origin of coffee trees, lung disease in the Arabian Peninsula, but from the highland forests of central Ethiopia, was not confirmed by the Western scientific community until the middle of the 20th century. In every corner of a certain axis, Asia, Madagascar and other tropical regions, there are more than 100 wild coffee species that can be identified by classification, and only about 30 coffee species have been planted by people, most of which are planted on a small scale. One of them is called the Coffea Canephora, also known as the Robusta Coffea Robusta, which has also begun to play a major competitor to the Arabica species in commercial transactions and human fame.

No one really knows where and when Karabica's coffee beans were first planted artificially. Some historians speculate that coffee trees were first planted in Yemen; but more favorable evidence suggests that Isabia, the origin of coffee verified in botany, recorded the deliberate planting of coffee trees around 575 A.D. when it was brought to the southern Arabian Peninsula, it was already an agricultural crop.

In addition, no one is sure what is the definition of the earliest "cup of hot coffee" that people drink. As far as we know, coffee beans are seeds in small grains, a thin layer of flesh and sweet fruit. The earliest cup of "hot coffee" is not to extract the seeds of coffee beans at all, but is more likely to roast the shell of the coffee fruit a little bit and then throw it directly into boiling water to make "hot coffee"! To this day, hot drinks made in this way are still widely consumed in the Yemen area, known locally as "Qishr" (also spelled as Kishr, Kisher, and many other different spellings), and in Europe as "Coffee Sultan" (also spelled as Coffee Sultana). It is also possible that the dried fruit is roasted with the seeds, crushed and boiled in boiling water. The dried pulp shell is very sweet and contains caffeine, so any drink made from coffee pulp shell tastes sweet and has the refreshing effect of caffeine.

A question worth pondering: what makes someone from Syria, Persia or Turkey think of roasting coffee seeds at a high enough temperature so that the so-called "Pyrolysis" can be effectively carried out to fully present the most reliable flavor oil (Flavor oils) in coffee beans? This background is undoubtedly the biggest reason for the success of coffee cultural value construction!

There are all kinds of theories about the source of coffee, from the poetic ones of wasteful imagination to some far-fetched and plausible ones. According to Islamic legend, a man named Sheik Omar was banished to the Arabian wasteland around 1260. In order to stop the hunger, he tried to cook the coffee seeds directly into soup to eat, but it tasted bitter, so later he roasted the seeds and then used them to make soup.

There is another theory: when farmers in Yemen or Ethiopia went to cook with coffee branches as firewood, they discovered the value of coffee seeds because of this process. This theory often appeared in literary works at the beginning of the 20th century and has a strong storytelling nature, but it is different from a historical point of view.

Ian Bersten assumes in his provocative historical book, "Coffee rises, Tea sinks" (temporary translation) "Coffee Floats,Tea Sinks", this is a simple accident. One day, someone accidentally found that using a lightly roasted coffee pulp shell to cook a "machine luxury" drink tastes higher than the original cooking method, because it was made the same way later, and all the coffee seeds were roasted. Ian Berstein reasoned more boldly: the southern Arabian Peninsula in the 16th century belonged to the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and at that time, in order to make good use of coffee seeds that had no use before, they vigorously promoted the roasting of coffee seeds to make "luxury" drinks together.

Obviously, the Ottoman Turkish Empire was the initiator of the spread of coffee quoting habits and coffee making technology, coupled with the expanding territory of the empire at that time, indirectly promoted the exchange of coffee drinking culture and commercial transactions. Berstein further pointed out that the first area where there was a real "Roasted Coffee" was in Syria. Because Syrians, especially those in Damascus, were the first to develop metal utensils specifically used to bake coffee beans, which can produce higher baking temperatures than the traditional clay baking equipment used by the Yemens.

In addition, Berstein also believes that the smell produced by baking soot, which appears only at the beginning of pyrolysis, is a fascinating smell, even better than coffee, which may be what makes someone love it. the reason for constantly baking coffee seeds. And this kind of person knows after playing for a long time that the coffee seeds must be roasted to a high temperature before the smell will come out, and the "extravagant" drinks made from roasted coffee seeds will have a fruit-like smell.

So far, there is no way to confirm the authenticity of all these inferences. There are many records in human history that people roasted some live nuts long before humans began to bake coffee seeds, which, on the one hand, improve the taste of food, on the other hand, they are easier to digest. Maybe roasting coffee seeds is simply someone who wants to do the same. Another possibility is that maybe some people who are roasting and making "machine luxury" beverage materials accidentally leave for too long and let coffee seeds with peel shells bake for too long and come back to cook with this raw material that has been roasted for too long. Only to get an unexpected surprise.

In any case, at least we can be sure that there is the word "roasted coffee beans" in Syria or Turkey around 1550. Yes. At the beginning of words, roasting coffee beans has not only become a worldwide cultural fashion, but also the beginning of vigorous business transactions.