The Journey of Coffee: From Ancient Origins to Modern-Day Obsession

Would you believe that in some parts of England, such as Loughborough, in the 1980's there were no coffee shops?

People didn’t go out for coffee.

If they drank coffee, it was at home.

Compare that as we know it today.

Our daily consumption of cappuccino, latte and other exotic forms have grown stratospherically and rising.

Not even the global pandemic has stopped the popularity of coffee.

It has also not only developed its status as a ‘human right’ but a type of snobbery as well.

We go out for an overpriced beverage fattened and sweetened beyond recognition.

It was while sitting in one such establishment, that I stopped to think about the origins of coffee.

Coffee, I discovered, was apparently an attraction for centuries.

It is reported to have been discovered in the first millennium AD by an Ethiopian goat herd.

He noticed that his herd were sprightlier after munching on some berries.

This drink, made from berries spread into Yemen and coffee became part of Arab life.

In the beginning and for centuries the raw beans were boiled until the idea of roasting them was developed.

The first coffee shop was opened in 1475 in Constantinople and the concept travelled slowly west into Europe.

Pope Clement VIII, it is said, was converted to this new drink at the end of the 16 th century.

Following his conversion, he is remarked to have announced:

“This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.”

In England, one of the first intellectuals to embrace coffee as part of creative life was Francis Bacon, who noted that coffee – ‘comforteth the brain and heart and helpeth digestion.’

Apart from Constantinople, London had more coffee shops than anywhere else in Europe by the 18 th century.

Coffee houses in Oxford were seen as places to sit and think, talk and write.

The snobbery was noticeable even then as, in Oxford, they were known as – ‘penny universities’ – for the cost of a cup of coffee, you could gain access to intellectual discussions and, critically sober debate.

Literature, at least some of it, owes a great deal to coffee. Balzac and Voltaire were both, apparently, 50 cups a day men.

Some, like Margaret Attwood, have blends named after them; she even wrote of the pleasure of the “jitter in a cup”.

Bach wrote a cantata about coffee with a line that warned – “if I wasn’t allowed, three times a day, to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shrivelled little goat.”

Nowadays, coffee is often used as an excuse for something else – a boost to start the day; taking a break from work; catch-up; gossip; or to invite someone home after a date. 

Coffee, especially during Freshers' week at university campuses, can be really obscene especially waking up without knowing each other's names.

Watchers of the television series – Friends – would have noticed that the gang used it to cling to one another.

This saying is attributed to Louis XV:

What would life be without coffee?

But, Then, What is life even with coffee?

Do you agree??