Origins of Coffee

Posted by Janie Franz Categories: Food Trivia, History, Middle East, Coffee

Coffee was first discovered around 850 A.D. by the members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia who had observed goats having extra pep after eating the berries of a certain shrub. They mixed the ground up berries (or coffee beans) with animal fat and ate them. (Yes, they are berries, though we call them beans.)

Arab traders first cultivated the coffee plant around 1000 A.D. They roasted the beans and boiled them, serving them as a drink they called “qahwa” which means “preventing sleep.” Soon, coffee was traded and by 1453 found its way to Constantinople where the first coffeehouse was opened twenty-some years later.

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