by Kalyani Kurup

Created on: September 02, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

Coffee is the reigning queen of dining tables, coffee tables, peg tables and party shacks. It is an after-dinner antidote to a heavy meal, a stimulant when you are working, a remedy when you are unwell, and a soother when you are partying. It makes its appearance in incarnations of black or brown or hot or cold or mocha or cappuccino, to appease different palates. It is ready to serve you anywhere, at any time of the day. It flirts with all, as part of ice creams and pastries and cakes and pies.

This universal beverage is raking in millions today at Starbucks or Seattle's Best. But it took its first faltering steps, en route to these huge retail outlets, in the 9th century, in Ethiopia, a place from where early human journeys are also supposed to have begun. Ethiopian shepherds are credited with the discovery of the potency of coffee beans, taking their clue from their cattle that apparently turned hyperactive by consuming the berry. It is even suggested that the brew could have got its name from the Kingdom of Kaffa where it originated, though the more popular version is that it is the Italian word caf that later became coffee.

Coffee spread fast from its land of origin to Egypt, Yemen, Persia, Turkey, etc., to the Arab World in general. In its fledgling stages, it was not even brewed, but was just chewed and eaten. It is in the Arab world, in the lap of Islamic culture that the coffee culture grew. It became a new power center, around cups of which people sat and gossiped or deliberated upon politics. This energizing drink, which helped them stay awake, became a hallmark of Arab hospitality. They called it qahwa,' a word that also could have got corrupted to become coffee.

By the 12th century, large-scale cultivation of coffee and its roasting and pounding and brewing started in the Arabian Peninsula. By 1554, coffee houses were opened in Constantinople in Turkey. This trend soon caught up in many cities of the East. These coffee shops were in a way similar to the village conclaves of yore, but power centers of a more commercial nature.

In Europe, coffee unleashed its charms first in Italy when a shipment arrived in Venice from Turkey in 1615. As the locals fell for its charms, there was a lot of opposition from the more orthodox to ban the drink on grounds of religion and convention. The story goes that such a group approached the then Pope with a request to ban it. But when the pontiff tasted it, apparently he too fell in love with the invigorating beauty.

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