insideKENT Magazine Issue 71 - February 2018 | Page 73

FOOD+DRINK
THE WORLD OF
Coffee
COFFEE IS THE HOT DRINK THAT IS PREFERRED BY JUST UNDER TWO THIRDS
OF THE UK – LET’S PUT THAT INTO PERSPECTIVE: IT BEATS OUR NATIONAL
BEVERAGE, TEA, HANDS DOWN – ALTHOUGH IT MAY HAVE FOUND A NEW LEASE
OF LIFE IN ITS SEEMINGLY INFINITE VARIETY OF FORMS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
HOWEVER, IT’S ACTUALLY BEEN AROUND FOR A LOT LONGER THAN THAT. 1,000
YEARS LONGER TO BE PRECISE.
What we now know and love as ‘coffee’ was
in fact first discovered in Ethiopia in about
1,000 BC. It all came about when hunters
realised that if they ate certain berries (mixed
with animal fat) they got a boost of energy.
Those berries were, of course, coffee berries,
and it wasn’t long before Arab tradesmen
realised that they could make some money
out of this energy-giving plant. They took the
berries back home and created plantations so
that they could supply other traders in bulk.
While they were at it, they hit upon a way to
make the berries more palatable by boiling
them and the result was a drink that they called
‘gahwa’, which translates as ‘that which
prevents sleep’.
It wasn’t until 400 years later than the world’s
first coffee shop opened – Kiva Han opened
in 1475, over 20 years since coffee was first
introduced to Constantinople by the Ottoman
Turks. The café was hugely popular, so much
so that a law was introduced that allowed a
woman to divorce her husband if he failed to
give her enough coffee, which seems a tad
extreme... it. Coffee was instantly something that
Christians could drink without guilt.
The East kept their coffee a well guarded secret
until around 1600, when Italian traders
discovered it and brought it back to Europe.
Pope Clement VIII was intrigued, and, because
he liked it even though his advisors declared
it to be a threat from the infidels, he baptised England got its first coffee shop in 1651 and
we’ve not looked back since.
Word spread. It took a little while – the first
coffee shop didn’t open in Italy until 1645, but
when it finally reached the taste buds of the
Western world, it took them by storm and by
1675 coffee was the favoured morning drink
in America, where previously it had been beer!
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