I found this article and it was really interesting to me because coffee has a huge history:
It is estimated that coffee originated in an Ethiopian province called Kaffa. But, there is controversy about where it originated. Coffee first became trendy in Arabia during the 13th century. Coffee trees were grown in India sometime after 1600, and some around 1650 coffee was imported in to England and coffee houses opened in London and Oxford.
Coffee was popular by the 18th century in Europe and European colonists introduced the crop to other tropical countries to help them supply a healthy domestic demand. The demand for coffee was so strong in the 19th century that when authentic coffee beans were limited, people developed substitutes from vegetables like, chicory root, acorns and figs.
The history of coffee can be traced to at least as early as the 9th century, when it appeared in the highlands of Ethiopia. According to legend, shepherds were the first to observe the influence of the caffeine in coffee beans when, after their goats consumed some wild coffee berries in the pasture, the goats appeared to “dance” and have an increased level of energy. From Ethiopia, coffee spread to Egypt and Yemen, and by the fifteenth century had reached Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa.
Through the efforts of the British East India Company, coffee became popular in England as well. It was introduced in France in 1657, and in Austria and Poland following the 1683 Battle of Vienna, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks. When coffee reached the Thirteen Colonies, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe. However, during the Revolutionary War, the demand for coffee increased so much that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was partly due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants. After the War of 1812, during which Britain had temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans’ taste for coffee grew, and high demand during the American Civil War together with advances in brewing technology secured the position of coffee as an everyday commodity in the United States. The major coffee-producing regions today are South America, Vietnam, Cote d’Ivore and Kenya.
I really thought that this was interesting and I just made a summary. There is a huge history! To read more, go to http://www.coffeefacts.com/
