NEO•GRIOT

The sort of coffee-tree Coffea arabica came from Ethiopia (Abyssinia), namely from the south-west part of Ethiopian Highlands, which is called Kafa. People used leaves and fruit of coffee-tree since ancient times, long before the Semite tribe on the Arabian Peninsula had known about this plant.

The discoverers of coffee weren’t the Arabs, but Ethiopians – the group of some nationalities (Amhara, Tigray-Tigrinya, Gurage…). The group has appeared in the first thousand B.C., when inhabitants from the Arabian Peninsula moved to present Ethiopia and mixed with Negroids – Cushitic and Nilotes.

Ethiopians pounded coffee-tree fruits, mix them with adipose and made from them dumplings as large as plums. Fats, which were mixed with nourishing coffee fruits and seeds protein, empowered people. Coffee was a marvelous pepper-upper. From the fruits juice the nomads made beverage, looked like wine, and from the leaves – drink, like tea.
 
With time people started to make hot beverage from the seeds of the coffee-tree. At the beginning they used it during religious ceremonies. Later it became a national drink of the Ethiopians. Afterwards seeds and leaves harvesting became a separate trade which were spread from Africa to Yemen.

Coffee history in Yemen

Statue of Behzad in Tabriz

One of the earliest records of coffee contains in Arabian manuscript № 944, which is saved in the French National Library. Shehabeddin Ben, Arabian author of XV century, told about his contemporary Kamaleddin, a mufti of Yemenite town Aden, who was traveling to Persia. During his stay, he paid attention to his fellows, who were making and drinking coffee. Earlier he made little of it.

Retuning to Aden Kamaleddin felt weak and remembered about coffee. He decided to taste this beverage, which helped him not only be cured, but returned the strength of mind. Kamaleddin appreciated last advantage because it helped in night religious watches. The mufti’s authority and recommendations promoted the beverage’s distribution. A short time later not only dervishes but also crafts- and tradespeople, as well as other townsmen would drink this beverage.

Speaking about Asia countries, which supply coffee, most often we start with Yemen. In spite of the fact that country produces not much coffee, here it’s the most delicious and fragrant. Its state can be paralleled with famous Chinese yellow and red sorts of tea. Experts confirm that nothing can be compared with Yemen coffee. That is why long since Yemen is called forefather of coffee. His beloved and great son – Mocha (the name arose from the Mocha port) is known for its uncertainty. Its manufacture is so insignificant, that it enigmatic and very expensive rarity does not get any markets.

Describing the fast coffee distribution, Arabian author stressed that despite the fact that people liked this beverage so much, they even refused from Khat chewing.

Thus, became popular in Aden, the population’s habit of drinking coffee was spread to the neighboring cities and reached Mecca. Here, from the beginning, coffee was also used by dervishes in religious ceremonies, but then it came in life of all citizens. The coffee has reached the holy capital of Moslem world in 1470.

Legendary Mocha

We can surely assert that there aren’t any famous geographic names in the history of coffee thanMocha. A sort of coffee was called after this small Yemenite harbor on the Red Sea.

The city is deserved to be told about.

Mocha is a small Yemenite port city on the Red Sea

About 700 years B.C. the tradespeople from South Arabia first appeared on the East African coast. Long before the early caliphate Mocha city was a station of merchant navy and a shipyard. It was called Al-Mocha.

In 1512 the Portuguese squadron under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque occupied Mocha. Two years later the city was in Egyptian hands. In 1532 Yemenite was conquered by Turks. The State, which was integrated into the Ottoman Empire, during the century had been experiencing the pressure of Turkey.

The legends, which were written in 1763, connect the prosperity of Moch with the name of one sheikh called Shaddi. They told that he has arrived at an idea to extend planting of coffee-trees. Soon people successfully sold here a new product. A small settlement has grown to prosperous market town. In Europe its name has turned into the Mocha coffee and became the name of the sort. Even mountains around Mocha, which were covered with coffee plantations, were called «coffee mountains».

Mountains around Mocha

When sheikh Shaddi died, people have raised a mosque above his grave. His name was remembered in morning prayers like a name of city’s patron, the protector of Arabian coffee housesand a person who convinced humanity to drink coffee and buy coffee beans.

The Yemenite independent state (Imamat) was founded in 1633, after the antiottoman uprising. It was a time of comparative peace and more active economic advancement. Yemen has established communication with some European countries and supplied there his Mocha coffee. Just that period was a time of port’s prosperity like one of the main coffee trade centre. This prosperity coincided with a general economical upturn in the country, which already had a name «The happiest».

It is essential to stress following moments.

• It does not give rise to doubts, that to the end of XVII century the whole world got coffee only from Yemen. It was real and famous Mocha coffee (or Mokka). To the middle of XVII century Turkish and Egyptian merchants came to Yemen and got the best coffee beans. They bought a crop just from the tree, provided its harvest and seed treatment. Coffee was prepared with a help of dry method, i.e. it was dried out on the sun.
• The prosperity of Yemenite coffee trade was in many respects determined with monopolistic goods production, which popularity in Europe has become a rapid growth. Coffee has repeated the fate of many tropical spices, which are first of all famous for gustatory qualities.

The Arabs were very proud of new beverage and kept a lid on its preparation. They have forbidden to export coffee beans, if they are not dried. These measures were taken in order that no one grain, which may be sprout, doesn’t come to foreigners` hands, who were forbidden to visit coffee plantations.

About 1650 one Moslem pilgrim called Baba Budan could get seven green coffee beans and brought them secretly to south India. Some beautiful coffee trees have been grown from these grains and they laid the foundation of coffee growing in this country.

Beit el Fakih. The Caravan Way

By 1690 the Dutch got seeds in India and to the end of the century they founded coffee plantations on the Java and Sumatra islands. In some years they became the main coffee supplier to Europe, first of all owing to the Dutch East Indies company. The Amsterdam port was one of the most important centers in the world coffee trade.

From this moment begins the fast decline in Yemenite coffee trade, which supplies has always been carried in two ways – the first one was north caravan-sea and the second was south sea. In first case coffee was delivered from the market to the coast of Red Sea on camels and then to Suez, and then again on camels to Egypt. The sea route passed south direction to the Mocha port and from here – around Africa to Europe.

How to make Ethiopian coffee at home.

Coffee ceremony in Lalibela, Ethiopia

>via: http://coffeeterritory.com/the-coffee-history-in-ethiopia/

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Ethiopia: Changes in the Coffee Equation