The Sometimes Scandalous History of Coffee

No one can trace the ultimate origins of the modern cup of Jo, that black and steamy beverage that has probably influenced our civilization more than any other substance. What we do know is that coffee was first imbibed in Abyssinia - where Ethiopia now lays - and Ethiopian folklore offers the following tale to explain its discovery:

A goatherd named Kaldi liked to allow the animals in his charge to wander the mountainsides in search of food and follow the paths that they made. In the late afternoon he would blow a high note on his pipe to call them back and then lead them home. One day, they failed to return when called. Kaldi was obliged to follow the distant sounds of their bleating.

He discovered his goats under the cover of rainforest trees, running and butting into one another, dancing on their hind legs, and squealing in excitement. Kaldi thought they were bewitched. Then he noticed that they'd been eating red berries from a tree he'd never seen before. He assumed that it was poison, and worried that they would die. It took him hours to coax his animals into returning home.

The next day, they ran straight back to the grove for another fix. Reassured now that they hadn't taken any ill effect, Kaldi decided to partake himself. Soon he was frolicking along with his goats and inspired to compose poetry and songs. Believing he'd never be tired or grouchy again, he rushed home to tell his father about the magical berries.

From there, word spread like wildfire. Coffee (now brewed) traveled across the Red Sea. By the sixteenth century, the drink had become so popular in Turkey that a lack of sufficient supplies could provide a woman with the grounds (pardon the pun) to seek a divorce. In England, women were not so empowered. Excluded from the London coffeehouses, they retaliated with the Women's Petition Against Coffee in 1674. Chief amongst its complaints was their contention that this "devil's brew" was making their men impotent.

Coffee was credited with fomenting rebellion - especially in the cafes of France, whose heady intellectual atmosphere ultimately spawned the French Revolution, and in Boston's Green Dragon, a coffeehouse tavern that thrived from 1697-1832 and provided people like John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere with a place to meet and plot Revolution over cups of the steaming black stimulant. Many were the poets and writers who believed in the divinatory powers of coffee and used in to provoke flights of fancy similar to Kaldi's. Among them were Edgar Allan Poe and Honore de Blazac, who ate crushed roasted beans on an empty stomach, with scarcely any water, before writing.