Coffee Machine

The earliest records of coffee in history use were between 575 and 850 A.D. when it was used as a food.

The coffee beans were crushed into balls with animal fat and eaten as quick high energy snacks for long marches and during warfare.
The fat, protein and caffeine in the balls provided energy and alertness, making an early form of energy bar!

Coffee first begin to be made into a drink around 1000 A.D.

Coffee History tells the story told is that a young Ethiopian goat herder, Kaldi,  noticed his goats behaving frenetically after eating some red berries from a near by bush.

Kaldi tried some of the berries for himself and found to his amazement that he felt awakened and began to dance around with his goats.

Kaldi soon developed this into a daily habit which was noticed by a monk from a near by monastery.

The monk tried the berries for himself, noticed the effect and had the idea of boiling the berries into a drink.

The monks used this drink to help stay away during long religious services and the first version of coffee was born.
This drink spread from monastery to monastery and then through out the Middle East.

Kaldi and Goat

By about 1100 A.D. coffee trees were starting to be cultivated on the Arabian peninsula.
The Arabs were the first people to roast the coffee bean and boil it in to a drink.

The first written accounts of coffee in history were by a philosopher and astronomer Rhazes (850-922 A.D.) followed by the philosopher and physician Avicenna of Bukhara (980-1037 A.D.).

Avicenna wrote about a drink called ‘bunchum’ which many believe to be coffee, “It fortifies the members, it cleans the skin, and dries up the humidities that are under it, and gives an excellent smell to all the body”

The popularity of coffee continued to spread and the worlds first coffee house opened in Constantinople in 1475.

By the late sixteenth century, European travellers to the Middle East had noted the drink in their travel journals, describing that it was often used as a medicine for a huge range of illnesses, the most relating to the stomach.

A German physician Leonhard Rauwolf described in his travel journal one of the earliest European accounts of coffee, writing “they have a very good drink they call Chaube (Coffee) that is almost as black as ink and very good in illness, chiefly that of the stomach. Of this they drink in the morning early in open places before everybody, without fear or regard, out of China cups, as hot as they can…”

The first coffee introduced into Europe was done so by Venetian traders in the early seventeenth century.
Coffee was imported through the busy ports of Venice and Marseilles and the European coffee trade network began.
Once coffee was in Europe, word of it spread with travellers, the more enterprising ones importing the bean with them.
The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645.

England’s coffee history began when the first English coffee house was opened in 1650 in the university town of Oxford.

Its popularity grew quickly, especially amongst the local students who made the local coffee houses their regular meeting places giving birth to England’s first social clubs.

Two years after the coffee houses arrived in Oxford, a man named Pasqua Rosée opened London’s first coffee houses.
The coffee house was so popular that by 1715 there was as many as 2000 coffee houses in London alone.

Edward Lloyd opened his coffee house in 1688 catering mainly to sailors and merchants.
While running this coffee house, Edwards established a list detailing ships cargo and schedules.
London’s underwriters came to his coffee house to sell shipping insurance and merchants came to keep track of ships.
From this bustling coffee house arose Lloyd’s of London, today one of the worlds largest insurance companies in the world.

Lloyds of London Coffee House

Coffee made its way into France in 1657, made popular in Paris by a Turkish ambassador, Suleyman Aga.

Austria coffee history began when they stumbled upon coffee in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna.
The defeated Turks left behind their supplies including thousands of livestock and camels as well as several thousand sacks of exotic foods, including several hundred sacks of coffee.

At first the coffee was thought to be animal feed, but a Pole in the army named Kolshitshy knew of coffee from his travels through the Middle East and opened Vienna’s first coffee house.

The Dutch were the first to cultivate and transports coffee commercially, through their colonies. in early to mid 1600.
They intentionally acquiring colonial land with the intent of cultivating coffee.

They were so successful that for many years the Dutch controlled the worlds coffee price.

Though coffee was therefore highly important though the colonies it wasn’t until 1668 that coffee was introduced to America, 44 years after New York was settled.
By the end of the century however, there were coffee houses in all the major cities.

High tax levels on Tea and the end of the United States colonialism, dramatically reflected by the Boston Tea Party, made tea very unpopular in America and coffee which could be imported directly from the Caribbean the drink of choice.

Coffee made its way to Brazil in the form of a seedling smuggled out of France in 1727.
Brazil and with it Columbia grew to be huge coffee producing power houses, with Brazil being the worlds largest producer today (2009).

Colombia is now the worlds third largest producer, due to Vietnam taking second place in recent years.

Vietnam has become a major producer of the cheaper but very popular robusta beans. These beans are favoured by larger companies an are popular for use in instant coffee.

The first coffee machine was made in 1818.