Coffee Culture the Origin of Coffee

There are different legends about the origin of coffee. Among them, the most common and popular story is the story of the shepherd.

Legend has it that there was a shepherd who happened to find his sheep jumping and dancing while herding sheep. If you look carefully, it turns out that the sheep ate a kind of red fruit that led to their funny behavior. He tried to pick some of these red fruits to boil, but the room was full of fragrance, and the juice was even more refreshing and refreshing after drinking it. Since then, this fruit has been used as a refreshing drink and has been well received.

In ancient times, Arabs first dried and boiled coffee beans and drank the juice as stomach medicine, thinking it was helpful to digestion. It was later found that coffee had a refreshing effect, and because Islamic rules forbade believers to drink alcohol, coffee was used instead of alcohol as a refreshing drink. After the 15th century, Muslims who made pilgrimages to the holy land of Mecca gradually brought coffee back to their places of residence, making it gradually spread to Egypt, Syria, Iran and Turkey. The entry of coffee into Europe should be attributed to the Ottoman Empire of Turkey at that time. Because the coffee-loving Ottoman army marched westward to Europe and was stationed there for several years, when the army finally withdrew, it left behind a large number of supplies, including coffee beans. People in Vienna and Paris were able to develop European coffee culture with these coffee beans and cooking experience gained from the Turks. The war was originally occupied and destroyed, but it unexpectedly brought about cultural exchange and even integration, which was unexpected by the rulers.

Westerners are familiar with coffee with a history of three hundred years, but in the East, coffee has been widely used as a drink in all walks of life in the East. Coffee appeared earliest and most accurately in the 8th century BC, but as early as Homer's works and in many ancient Arab legends, a magical, dark, bitter, and highly stimulating drink has been recorded. Around the 10th century, Avicenna used coffee as a medicine to treat diseases. There is also a strange story from the 15th century in which it is said that a Yemeni shepherd saw a group of goats picking reddish berries from a bush. Soon the goats became restless and excited. The shepherd reported this to a monk, who cooked some berries. Then extract a bitter, strong drink that can drive away drowsiness and drowsiness.

Although coffee was found in the Middle East, coffee trees first originated in Africa, a region now belonging to Ethiopia, called Kaffa, from which coffee spread to Yemen, Arabian Peninsula and Egypt, where coffee developed rapidly and soon became popular in people's daily lives.

By the 16th century, early merchants had sold coffee in Europe, thus introducing coffee as a new drink into Western customs and life. The vast majority of coffee exported to the European market comes from Alexandria and Smyrna, but with growing demand and high tariffs imposed by import and export ports, as well as increased knowledge of coffee planting, dealers and scientists are experimenting with transplanting coffee to other countries. The Dutch planted coffee trees in their overseas colonies (Batavia and Java), and the French in Martinique (in Latin America) in 1723, and then in the Antilles. Later, the British, Spaniards and Portuguese began to invade the tropical coffee-growing areas of Asia and America.

Coffee cultivation began in northern Brazil in 1727, but poor weather conditions gradually shifted the crop to other regions, first in Rio de Janeiro, and finally to Sao Paulo and Minas (circa 1800-1850). Here coffee found its ideal growing environment. Coffee cultivation grew here until it became Brazil's most important source of economy.

It was between 1740 and 1850 that coffee cultivation reached its highest popularity in Central and South America.

Although coffee was born in Africa, cultivation and household consumption were introduced relatively recently. In fact, it was the Europeans who brought coffee back to its homeland and introduced it into their colonies, where it flourished because of favorable land and climatic conditions.