by judyatlarge

Created on: August 29, 2008   Last Updated: December 09, 2010

So you love your morning coffee or coffee any time of day. You're not alone and, as rumor would have it, it all started when a herd of Ethiopian goats began jumping with exuberant energy. Their herder discovered they acted thus after having nibbled on the berries of a certain wild shrub. Puzzled, he tried them and found them invigorating (He likely came down with a raging case of diarrhoea , because the sweet red pulp covering the coffee "cherry" is a strong laxative, according to the staff of the Britt coffee plantation in Heredia, Costa Rica.)

For centuries, the beans were chewed raw in Ethiopia. Archeological digs suggest humans have been eating coffee berries over a hundred thousand years. By the 13th Century Muslims regarded coffee as a holy elixir. It sent dervishes whirling and kept worshippers awake through long prayer sessions.

Ugandans were noticed chewing dried coffee beans when the first explorers from Europe were seeking the origin of the Nile. Their studies show that around 1000 AD, green coffee skins mixed with animal fat were used as travel food. These coffee balls were both small and light but with their high fat, sugar and caffiene content, they provided sustanance, extra energy and greater stamina for travlers along the trade routes. Reports from those European explorers give rise to the notion that Yemen, on the Southern Arabian peninsula, may have been the first place to actively cultivate coffee, since it does not grow wild there. It's unsure how it arrived in Yemen and several possibilites have been proposed, one that it was brought as a trade-good by Ethiopians, another that it was taken along when Ethiopia invaded Southern Arabia in 525 AD, and yet another that it was dropped as seed by large birds, though this latter suggestion is given less credence than the others.

Other archeological studies indicate that circa 500 AD coffee beans were roasted in a hole dug in the ground, covered with sand, and a fire built over top as was done for drying other seeds and berries. Following roasting, the coffee bean was either crumbled between two stones, or ground up with stone mortar and pestle. After they learned how to boil water, Arabians made an actual brew of coffee, though they cooked the green beans and arrived at a completely different flavor because; with roasting, the beans undergo a chemical change which makes the end product more palatableat least to our taste-buds.

Despite a possible reference in the 10th Century of the coffee bean

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