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According
to legend,
Arabian
coffee-drinking began almost 12 centuries
ago (850 A.D.) when an Abyssinian goat herder
named Khalid noticed that while the afternoon
sun
made him drowsy, his flock frolicked and skipped
about after nibbling at some berries. Khalid either
ate the berries whole, or ground and boiled the
them.
When
his wife saw how energetic the normally
exhausted Khalid was, she urged him to share this
miraculous discovery with the local holy man at
the
monastery. The chief monk did not share Khalid's
enthusiasm. Declaring the berries
"the work of the
Devil," he
flung them into a fire to banish their
offending presence. Soon the room filled with
the
delicious aroma of roasting berries, and other
monks
hurried in to discover the source of this new
delight.
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The
chief monk retrieved the smoldering berries, deposited
them in water and instructed the
other monks to sip the elixir. As they drank it
down heartily, they experienced the clarity and
vigor Khalid had described. The brew was proclaimed
a miracle and was then used to keep
them awake during their evening prayers!
Click HERE for The Legend
of Omar the Dervish.
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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. Somehow
the Arab traders got the beans from Ethiopia across
the Red Sea to Yemen around
the 6th Century A.D.
| African
cultures were also using the bean prior to this... |
as
a solid food. The ripe berries were crushed by mortars,
combined with animal
fats and shaped into round balls, which could be carried
and eaten on long journeys. African warriors also ate
the "coffee balls" before going into
battle.
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