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Coffee entered the English language
around 1598, it is the Italian word "caffe" which originated from the
Turkish as "kahve", otherwise known as "qahwa" to the Arabic tongue.
Legend has it that a Yemenite Sufi mystic, Shaikh ash-Shadhili found the
berries by coming onto goats of extreme vitality as they consumed the
berries off a tree. A similar myth is attributed to Ethiopian
goat-herder, Kaldi who came across goats that were said to be dancing as
they ate the berries as well. The coffee plant itself is believed to
have originated in the Kingdom of Kaffa. The earliest mention of coffee
as a beverage in the 10th century CE by a Persian physician, Razi. The
earliest writings on the subject came from Abd al-Qadir al Jaziri in
1587 tracing the origins and legal controversies of coffee. According to
the writer, Sheikh Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Arden was the
first to adapt the use of coffee in 1454 AD. Coffees' tendency to keep
one awake was of great interest among Sufis. Coffee started its world
trek in Arabia Felix (Yemen) onto Mecca and Medina, then onto Cairo,
Damascus, Baghdad and Istanbul. Yemeni traders brought the coffee
berries back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean.
Eventually the first coffee house (Kiva Han) was opened in
Constantinople in 1457. At first, coffee was not easily accepted -
conservative , orthodox imams forbade their followers from drinking it
due to its stimulating effects upon its people. But by 1524 the ban was
overturned by order of Ottoman Turkish Sultan, Selim I. Egypt had a
similar ban put in place in 1532 where coffee warehouses and coffee
houses were sacked by their government. In Ethiopia, the Orthodox Church
issued its ban before the 17th century. But by the second half of the
19th century, coffee was again allowed and its popularity spread from
around 1880 to 1886. Coffee was baptized in 1600 by Pope Clement VIII,
despite protests that coffee was considered a Muslim drink. The first
European coffee house was opened in Italy in 1645. England imported
coffee through the British East India Company and the Dutch East India
Company during the 16th century, with its first coffee house opening in
1583, by 1675, there were no fewer than 3,000 coffee houses open in
England. Coffee was considered a medicinal drink by physician "MP",
saying it was good for drying-up the "Crudities out of the Stomack" and
for expelling "Fumes" from out of the head. However English women
complained that coffee caused impotency in men! By 1699, coffee drinking
was well established in France. Austria and Poland became coffee
drinkers in 1683 after the "Battle of Vienna" in defeating the Turks.
Coffee was brought into the Americas by French traders through
colonization via French plantations in the West Indies. The first coffee
plantations became a reality in Brazil around 1727. Today, coffee is
grown in Vietnam, Columbia, Guatemala and Indonesia - other growing
fields can be found in Australia in New South Wales and Cooktown which
use a mechanized method of harvesting developed in 1981.
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