Perth Coffee Blog by Ristretto

CoffeeEd 2: A Historical Look at the Spread of Coffee

Previously we looked briefly at where coffee comes from and where it grows. Today we are going to explore its spread worldwide and how it became the popular beverage we know today…

Botanical evidence tells us that coffee Coffea Arabica is indigenous to the plateaus of central Ethiopia at several thousand feet above sea level. Coffee made its way to Yemen around 700AD where it was traded.

It is thought that Arabian traders introduced it however, Persians may have also returned to the area with coffee after their invasions of Egypt and Yemen in the sixth century AD.

In Arabica coffee was first sought as a fantastic medicine, then as a beverage often taken with meditation and religious exercises. It eventually hit the streets, and the early Coffee House was born.

There was a great concentration of these houses in Cairo and Mecca. Here traders from around the world got their first taste. By the 15th century - coffee was extremely popular. However, Its spread was tightly controlled by the Arabs who wouldn’t allow fertile seed to leave their country. Coffea arabica was destined to be smuggled.

Brother Baba Budan, a Muslim pilgrim from India, apparently bound seven seeds of coffee around his belly and transported them from Arabia to his hermitage, a cave in the hills near Chikmagalur in southern India. The seeds were planted and said to have flourished; their descendants are to be found up and down India today. The French tried to propagate coffee in southern France without success.

The Dutch, who obtained some seeds from Malabar in India had greater success in Java. Timor, Sumatra, Ceylon and Celebs followed. The French and Spanish soon joined in establishing plantations in their respective colonies.

Coffee reached the masses of Europe in 1615 it was introduced by Venetian traders. At this point coffee became more widely available, at first to the noble classes who could enjoy a Mocha-Java blend offering an entire world of coffee experience. Subsequently coffee was then sold by street drink vendors, some of whom promoted coffee as having medicinal qualities. The first of the famous European coffee houses are not believed to have opened until the middle of the 17th Century.

Coffee in Central and South America owes its existence to “The Nobel Tree”, a seedling presented to LouisXIV of France by the Dutch and is said to be one of the greatest ever propagation of a plant species ever. The original seedling was green housed, flowered, produced cherry fruit and seeded. Its offspring were transported to the Caribbean, to Martinique by Gabriel Mathew De Clieu, a young French naval officer serving in Martinique who, in 1720 whilst on leave, frequented a number of Paris coffee houses and became passionate about the beverage.

Similarly to Brother Baba Budan, De Clieu smuggled the trees across borders. But his quest was not an easy one; he endured theft, assault, sickness, pirates and near starvation all while protecting his precious coffee. This included sharing his water rations with the plant. The coffee plant flourished on planting. Some 50 years latter there were 18,791,680 plants recorded in Martinique. Coffee cultivation was then established in Haiti, Mexico and most of the islands of the Caribbean.

Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, the man who introduced coffee to Latin America, died a poor and destitute man in Paris during the French revolution.

Offshoots of this very plant made its way throughout the Caribbean, to the Island of Reunion and the Bourbon Isle. These plants were found to be a different variety of arabica and were given the varietal name of Bourbon.

In 1727 the emperor of Brasil deemed it necessary for his country to enter the coffee market and enlisted the services of one Francisco De Melho Palheta to obtain coffee seeds. Legend has it that De Melho Palheta, a suave and charming man, went to French Guiana to obtain seeds which were guarded by the French. He succeeded in his mission but by only having had charmed the French Governor’s wife into concealing the precious needed seeds and shoots into a bouquet of flowers which he took across the boarder!

Despite its enormous empire, the UK didn’t follow until 1730 when it began production in Jamaica. It was 1840 before the UK began to grow coffee in India, where historically it had always cultivated tea. Coffee certainly has its place in British history; Lloyd’s of London, the famous banking and trading institution was originally formed from a coffee house where commercial people met attracted by a warm cup and the latest trading, shipping and weather news.

Coffee once again experienced an upturn in popularity throughout late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

Into the 1990’s many large coffee house chains established local, national and international footprints, introducing a multitude of coffee based drinks to the populations at large. Much of this interest was sparked by a new wave of the proliferation of espresso coffee machines, the largest since their development from the early 1900s and refinement in the 1950s introducing espresso extractions of coffee to many new localities particularly across the USA.

With this proliferation came with the dumbing down, in the sense of over simplification and degradation of quality, around what was provided and to be held in the mainstream as a “good” coffee. Mass marketed and hyped, often espresso was offered with sugary syrups and a myriad of flavourings in more of a coffee based drink. Many locations would serve a poorly made coffee, or coffee consisting of poor-average quality coffee beans dark roasted to narrow their flavour profile.

More recently there has been a renewal and an increase in the numbers of and development of independent specialty coffee houses and walk up espresso/ coffee bars which share a focus on coffee quality from seed to cup.

Typically, these operators which some say to be part of a third wave, work with the dedication, skill and focus of true artisans to deliver a culinary product and experience of superior taste, consistency of quality. It’s about what individual coffees can give us, not just about the acts of pulling good looking shots or working with coffees simply from well regarded brand farms and estates. It’s about delivering the inherent essence of a particular coffee into the cup, understanding and share in the experience of it. It’s about making coffee the best it can be and appreciating individual coffees for what they are.

Working with amongst best coffees in season, they often recognise and highlight the provenance of the coffee and the coffee farmer’s work to produce great coffees.  2, 5 or 10 years ago many now identified as exemplary coffees did not exist at market. They were simply blended in with varying grades of coffee for which the farmer could only accept a going price rate.

Nowadays many farmers can segment their crops and achieve deserving prices for the finest coffees through more open and direct trading and relationships with specialty grade coffee professionals the world over. Given the reward, these practices are increasing. Many fine coffees are now recognised, promoted and bought through programmes and awards including the Cup of Excellence, now in its 10th year.

In Australia cafe coffee consumption is widely said to have approximately doubled in the last 10 years.