How coffee was discovered?

Coffee has been enjoyed by humans for more than 1,000 years. Throughout history coffee has been touted as a medicinal cure-all, and condemned as the devil’s brew.

Legend has it that back in 850 AD, a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his herd was full of energy and eating berries he had never noticed.

The goat were running about, butting one another dancing on their hind legs, and bleating excitedly.

Since the goats seemed to have such a reaction, the herder decided to give it a try. It must be the trees that maddened his goats.

First he chewed on a few leaves. They tasted bitter. As he masticated them, however, he experienced a slow tingle. Moving for his tongue down into his gut, and expanding to his entire body.

Next he tried the berries. The berries gave him a burst of energy and he began to feel very happy.

Kaldi told his father about the magical trees, the word spread and soon coffee became an integral part of Ethiopian culture.

In fact it was in Ethiopia that coffee was first grown and a beverage made from it. It was exported to the other side of the Red Sea in Aden in the fifteenth century.

Actually, the story of the goat herder isn’t the only legend surrounding this discovery. It is also said that an Arabian man was banished to the deserts with his followers to die of starvation.

His men became very desperate for nourishment and before long, they were boiling and eating the product of an unknown tree.

The broth that was produced by this unknown substance saved the lives of the men. In the nearest town, Mocha, many took their survival to be a religious sign. Because of the discovery, the drink was then named Mocha.

There is also and Eastern legend which ascribes the discovery of the berry to a Dervish named Haji, Omar, in the year 1285, being driven out of Mocha, was induced, in the extremity of hunger, to roast the berries which grew near his hiding place.

He ate them, as the only means of sustaining life and steeping the roasted berries in water to quench his thirst, he thus discovered their agreeable qualities and also that the infusion was nearly equal to solid food.

Today coffee is the world’s most popular beverage and it is a world commodity that is second only to crude oil.
How coffee was discovered?