This is My Prayerwall

Origin of Coffee...

Dedicated to coffee lovers who ain't got time to surf no coffee website of mine..

What is Coffee?

the word "coffee", meaning "the drink", is a modified form of the turkish wordkahveh which, in turn, is derived from the Arabic kahwa (or qahwah).

coffee was initially consumed only as a part of religious ceremony or on the advice of a physician. Coffee was used to treat kidney stones, smallpox, measles and coughs.

How coffee was found, legend has it that in the depths of Abyssinia, today's Etophia, sometime around the middle of the ninth century, there lived a sober goatherd called Khaldi.

One day, his normally lethargic goats pranced home in an agitated state. Curious at their antics, he followed them and discovered that they had been nibbling red berries of an evergreen tree.

Khadi decided to try some himself and was soon in a state euphoria. In his excitement, he dashed off to broadcast his finding and came upon a Muslim Elder who was depressed by his tendency to nod off during prayers.

Khaldi led him to the secret of the red berries and coffee took its first steptowards becoming one of mankind's favourite pick-me-ups.

Being of a more academic frame of mind than the goatherd, the mullah experimented with the beries and eventually hit on the idea of boiling them, turning the raw fruit of the coffee tree into a fragrant and delicious beverage.

Coffee was then regarded as a wonder drug and was only consumed in Yemen and Arabia on the advice of a doctor. However, Coffee was too exciting to be restricted to medical use for long. The Arabs were jealous of their discovery and refused to allow fertile coffee seed to leave their country; all seeds had to be perched and boiled. However, late in the 15th century, a Muslim pilgrim called Baba Budan bounded 7 seeds to his torso and smuggled them out of Arabia to be planted at his hermitage near Chikamalagur in South India. It is said that all the world`s coffee flowed from these seven seeds.

There are basically two principle species. The Arabica which originated from the middle east and the most widely cultivated around the world. The Robusta which originated from Congo. Robusta trees are hardier and can withstand greater extremes of climate than arabicas. robusta coffee beans are the principal beans used in many instant coffees.

It doesn't take long since then for coffee to spread in the world. The Dutch were the first Europeans to enter the coffee trade. From India, they brought the seeds to Indonesia and the rest of their colonies. And soon, widespread of coffee was made known to the rest of the world...

posted by jokejong @ 5/21/2007 12:34:00 AM