Coffee: A Brief History.
There are lots of stories how the people found the refreshing value of the coffee beans. According to the most widespread - and perhaps most credible - the goat shepherds in southern Yemen were the first to notice the value of coffee beans.
Since 1963, 24 import and 44 export countries have cooperated through their London-based International Coffee Organization to stabilize the situation. By imposing a quota system, they can limit the outflow of beans from producing nations in times of oversupply. These controls, in force to sustain prices only until the market does so normally, have been applied twice: from 1963 to 1973 and again in October 1980.
During their unsuccesful attempt to conquer Europe the Othman Turks introduced coffee and its cultural/culinaristic rituals. The first country to adopt coffee was Austria - the Viennese cafe trads are the richest still in Western countries. The first Viennese coffeehouse was founded by Franz Kulczycki in 1683.
The original home of the coffee plant is Africa but it can be found on the Arabian Peninsula, too.The most famous of the stories about the origin of coffee involves an Abyssinian goatherd named Kaldi who one day noticed that his normally docile goats had suddenly become exceptionally lively. On closer investigation Kaldi discovered his goats were nibbling the bright red berries from a shiny, dark-leafed shrub nearby.
Because of stories like this, coffee was first thought to have originated in Yemen on the Arabian peninsula when it was seen growing there by Europeans at a much later date. But the botanical evidence indicates that the coffee plant "Coffea Arabica" originated on the plateaus of central Ethiopia where it still grows wild.
Today coffee is grown in a multitude of countries around the world. Whether it is Asia or Africa, Central or South America, the islands of the Caribbean or Pacific, all can trace their heritage to the trees in the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau.
The Arabs were the first, not only to cultivate coffee but also to begin its trade. By the fifteenth century, coffee was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia and by the sixteenth century it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey.
Coffee was not only drunk in homes but also in the many public coffee houses -- called qahveh khaneh -- which began to appear in cities across the Near East. The popularity of the coffee houses was unequaled and people frequented them for all kinds of social activity. Not only did they drink coffee and engage in conversation, but they also listened to music, watched performers, played chess and kept current on the news of the day. In fact, they quickly became such an important center for the exchange of information that the coffee houses were often referred to as 'Schools of the Wise.'
