Imagine how the world would be today without coffee? It has become a regular part of people’s lives around the world from the time they wake up to the time they take their evening dinner’s dessert and a lot of times in between.

Thanks to the Ethiopians in Africa for discovering this wonderful coffee berries which according to legend began with a goat herder and his “hyper active” goats. Noticing the unusual behavior of his goats, he began to trace the cause from the red berries they were munching on having gotten tired of the grass.

Curious, the goat herder ate the wild berries too and felt greatly energized after the day’s tiring work. As the story is told, he then took some berry fruits to his monk friend who consequently boiled them. The monk testified that drinking the berry beverage has kept him alive and awake through the monastery’s prayer vigils.

From Ethiopia, the use of these stimulating red berries spread out throughout the African continent. Being considered as fresh fruits, these berries were usually eaten raw together with the seeds -the coffee bean. They were later used as energy food sources for long travels by land in lump forms with the ground berries and seeds mixed with the fat of animals.

Thanks to the Arabs who first invented the way on consuming the coffee beans without the berry fruits during the 1300s. They started calling it “qawah” as they learned to crush the beans, boil them in water and drink, not just the stimulating beverage, but also the crushed beans.

It still took maybe a century more before the coffee beverage was drunk by itself without having to also consume the ground roasted coffee beans. By the start of the 1500s, the trading of roasted coffee beans was prevalent in the Middle East and getting ready to cross international boundaries.

By the end of the 1600s, the coffee trading reached Europe which was readily grabbed by the more powerful British, French and Dutch people for world trade. The revitalizing coffee became quite popular in the western world that the Arabs sought to protect their blooming coffee trade industry to keep it from being “stolen” by the Europeans.

The great powers of the west later took steps to smuggle the coffee bushes into Europe which they soon discovered were not capable to grow in their temperate climates. The more persistent Dutch traders later found a way to bring the coffee plants to their colony in the Indonesian archipelago where the coffee growing industry started to flourish for the Dutch which later influenced the British and the French to grow coffee in their Asian colonies.

Having known the coffee bean story, you now could better appreciate and enjoy the stimulating exotic taste of this all time famous global drink.