History

The History of Coffee

As legend has it, coffee was discovered by a goat herder in Ethiopia who noticed that after eating the coffee berries that his goats had added vitality. One possible origin of both the beverage and the name is the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, where the coffee plant originated (its name there is bunn or bunna). The word coffee didn't enter the English language until the late 16th century through the Italian word "caffe".

Coffee was first imported to Italy, according to historic sources. The vibrant trade between the Italian city of Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants decided to introduce coffee to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for the beverage. In this way, coffee was introduced to Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was "baptized" by Pope Clement VIII in 1600 despite appeals to ban the Muslim drink. The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645.

Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account. The first coffeehouse in England was opened in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods. Edwards imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The popularity of coffeehouses spread rapidly in Europe, and later, America. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.

Antoine Galland (1646-1715) in his aforementioned translation described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate: "We are indebted to these great [Arab] physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis XIV of France, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Thevenot gave some of the beans to his friends, one of whom was de la Croix. However, the major spread of the popularity of this beverage in Paris was soon to come. In 1669, Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Mehmed IV, arrived in Paris with his entourage bringing with him a large quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they provide their French and European guests with coffee to drink, but they also donated some beans to the royal court. Between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinking coffee among Parisians.

The introduction of coffee to the Americas is attributed to France through its colonization of many parts of the continent starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where the first French coffee plantations were founded. The first coffee plantation in Brazil occurred in 1727 when Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta smuggled seeds from French Guiana. By the 1800s, Brazil's harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to a drink for the masses. Brazil, which like most other countries cultivates coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for the viability of the plantations until the abolition of slavery in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48).

For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazil was the biggest producer of coffee and a virtual monopolist in the trade. However, a policy of maintaining high prices soon opened opportunities to other nations, such as Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia and Viet Nam, now second only to Brazil as the major coffee producer in the world. Large-scale production in Vietnam began following normalization of trade relations with the US in 1995. Nearly all of the coffee grown there is Robusta.

Australia is a minor coffee producer, with little product for export, but its coffee history goes back to 1880 when the first of 500 acres began to be developed in an area between northern New South Wales and Cooktown. Today there are several producers of Arabica coffee in Australia that use a mechanical harvesting system invented in 1981.

The History of Tea

Tea was popular in the Orient as far back as five thousand years ago. It was used as a medium for taking medication, as an aid to digestion and its health and therapeutic properties were well accepted. The Camellia Sinensis plant from which black and green tea is derived actually grew wild in the Brahamaputra Valley region of Assam in India. Tea was also popular in monasteries where it was used as an aid to meditation by monks.

It was only after the Portuguese maritime powers opened up the trade routes to the Far East that tea was introduced to Europe. The Dutch, German and British then established trading houses such as the Dutch East India Company that brought tea into the commercial world. China, India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) were the main sources of tea then and the best teas still come from these countries.

Of course the story of the tea clippers, such as the famous 'Cutty Sark' racing the oceans to get their tea shipments into England are well known.

In the United States high taxes on tea imports levied by the British led to the 'Boston Tea Party' where ships carrying tea shipments were destroyed in Boston Harbour. This significant event in the revolutionary war with the British led to American independence.

Tea was rare and expensive in the nineteenth century and only drunk by the wealthy. In England the poorer classes drank beer! The establishment of large grocery chains by entrepreneurs such as Sir Thomas Lipton finally brought tea to the masses.

The medical benefits of tea, well known to the ancient world and countries of the Far East, have now been recognised by medical experts in Europe and the USA. Tea is enjoying a renaissance all over the world and its consumption is increasing. The many varieties of tea available, its health benefits, the natural flavours being added to it and the fact that a cup of tea contains about a third of the caffeine contained in a cup of coffee, contribute to its popularity.

Tea is relatively cheap and is the most consumed beverage in the world after water. Three thousand million (3 Billion) cups of tea are estimated to be drunk daily in various forms and environments.

This ancient, noble and sometime mystical beverage with its rich history, tradition and ceremony is playing an increasingly healthy and interesting role in the modern world.

The History of Chocolate

Chocolate residue found in several jars from the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras, from around 1100 B.C. is the earliest evidence to date of the use of cacao. The evidence found indicates that the earliest use of cacao seems to have been as alcoholic beverage. Slightly later, around 600-400 B.C. there are traces of chocolate from jars in Belize. An early Classic (460-480 A.D.) period Maya tomb from the site of Rio Azul, Guatemala, had vessels with the maya glyph for cacao on them and had residue of a chocolate drink. The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter and spicy drink called xocoatl, often seasoned with vanilla, chilli pepper, and achiote, (which we know today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the bromine content. Chocolate was an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cocoa beans were often used as currency. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize gruel (which acts as an emulsifier) and honey.

Christopher Columbus brought some cocoa beans to show Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was Spanish friars who introduced it to Europe more broadly.

The first recorded shipment to the Old World for commercial purposes was in a shipment from Veracruz to Sevilla in 1585. It was still served as a beverage, but the Europeans added sugar and milk to counteract the natural bitterness and removed the chilli pepper, replacing it with another Mexican indigenous spice, vanilla. Changes to the taste meant that by the 17th century it was a luxury item among the European nobility.

At the end of the 18th century, the first form of solid chocolate was invented in Turin by Doret. This chocolate was sold in large quantities from 1826 by Pierre Paul Caffarel. In 1819, F. L. Cailler opened the first Swiss chocolate factory. In 1828, Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten patented a method for extracting the fat from cocoa beans and making powdered cocoa and cocoa butter. Van Houten also developed the so-called Dutch process of treating chocolate with alkali to remove the bitter taste. This made it possible to form the modern chocolate bar. It is believed that the Englishman Joseph Fry made the first chocolate for eating in 1847, followed in 1849 by the Cadbury brothers.

Daniel Peter, a Swiss candle maker, joined his father-in-law's chocolate business. In 1867, he began experimenting with milk as an ingredient. He brought his new product, milk chocolate, to market in 1875. He was assisted in removing the water content from the milk to prevent mildewing by a neighbour, a baby food manufacturer named Henri Nestlé. Rodolphe Lindt invented the process called conching, which involves heating and grinding the chocolate solids very finely to ensure that the liquid is evenly blended.

Roughly two-thirds of the world's cocoa is produced in Western Africa, with close to half of the total sourced from Côte d'Ivoire. Like many food industry producers, individual cocoa farmers are at the mercy of volatile world markets. The price can vary from between £500 ($945) and £3,000 ($5,672) per ton in the space of just a few years. While investors trading in cocoa can dump shares at will, individual cocoa farmers can not ramp up production and abandon trees at anywhere near that pace.

Only two to three per cent of "cocoa futures" contracts traded in the cocoa markets ever end up in the physical delivery of cocoa. Every year seven to eight times more cocoa is bought and sold on the exchange than exists.

It has been alleged that an estimated 90% of cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire have used some form of slave labour in order to remain viable. When cocoa prices drop, farmers in West Africa sometimes cut costs by resorting to slave labour.

A number of manufacturers produce Fair Trade chocolate, whereby cocoa farmers are given a higher and more consistent remuneration. Fair Trade chocolate is produced by Oxfam, Trade Aid and Green and Blacks, among other companies. All Fair Trade chocolate can be distinguished by the logo.

Source: Wikepedia www.wikepedia.com