Most Important Coffee Events in History

Nothing beats a great cup of coffee in the morning to get you going. But have you ever thought about how the drink we know and love came to be?

Or how did we end up with the variety of flavors and brewing methods we have today? As passionate coffee drinkers, we'd like to share 10 fascinating facts about coffee's history with you.

We guarantee that learning more about your favorite beverage will make you love it even more!

1. The Origin of Coffee Is Unknown – But It Could Involve Goats

The origin of coffee is unknown, however it may have something to do with goats.

Despite the fact that coffee plays such an important role in our lives today, no one truly knows who invented it.

According to folklore, it began over a thousand years ago in Ethiopia, when a goatherd named Kaldi realized that eating the beans of a specific tree gave his animals greater vigor. They were described as “dancing” because it gave them so much energy!

Kaldi reported his findings to a nearby monastery's abbot, who utilized the beans to make a drink.

The abbot discovered that drinking it kept him attentive throughout the long hours of monastic prayer, and he told the other monks about his astounding discovery.

Soon, word of the energizing beverage had travelled far and wide, opening the path for coffee to become a globally consumed beverage.

The first written reference to the Kaldi story is from 1671, hence it is most likely incorrect.

2. Arabian Coffee Houses Were the First

While coffee consumption may have begun in Ethiopia, the first evidence of coffee houses may be found in Yemen in the fifteenth century.

Coffee shop tradition was in full swing a century later, with qahveh khaneh coffee shops springing up all throughout Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.

Coffee shop guests conversed, played chess, and listened to music in addition to drinking.

The coffee cafes were dubbed "Schools of the Wise" because they were so significant as locations to share information.

With pilgrims flocking to Mecca from all over the world, word of coffee traveled even further.

Indeed, it became regarded as the "wine of Islam" because of its strong ties to Mecca.

3. Smugglers Assisted In The Spread Of Coffee Cultivation Throughout The World

Smugglers aided in the spread of coffee growing over the world.

When the Ottoman Turks conquered Yemen in 1536, they discovered that exporting Yemeni coffee beans was a profitable source of revenue.

The British and Dutch East India Companies were key buyers, but the majority of the coffee was shipped north to the Arabian Peninsula.

To safeguard their monopoly, the Turks prohibited the export of any germination-capable coffee beans. Of course, like with every rule, there will be those who attempt to break it...

Baba Budan, an Indian pilgrim, is said to have been the first coffee smuggler.

He is supposed to have carried seven coffee beans from Mecca on his stomach, smuggled them out of Yemen, and planted them in Mysore, India.

Around a third of the coffee grown in India now is thought to be from trees that are direct descendants of Baba Buda's.

Others quickly followed in his footsteps. In 1616, the Dutch brought a tree from Yemen's Aden port to Holland.

Beans from that tree led to the growth of coffee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and another Dutchman transplanted trees from the Malabar coast of India to Java some eighty years later.

4. Mocha Coffee is named after a Yemeni port.

The word Mocha has nothing to do with the chocolatey beverage available today. Instead, it comes from the Yemeni port of Al-Makha.

Yemeni coffee, with its peculiar flavor, was sent all over the world from here.

Mocha Java is one of the world's oldest and most well-known coffee blends, thanks to the port's accessible connection to the Indonesian island of Java.

From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, Al-Makha was a major coffee trading center.

Yemen's grip on the trade lessened as other countries steadily boosted their coffee production, and Al-influence Makha's diminished.

5. King George III Assisted In Making America A Coffee-Drinking Nation

King George III aided in the development of America as a coffee-drinking nation.

The origins of coffee in America can be traced back to Captain John Smith, the founder of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.

In 1607, Smith introduced coffee to the area, but the settlers preferred the tea they were familiar with, thus it took a long time to catch on.

Dorothy Jones made coffee history in the United States in 1670, when she became the first woman to be granted a license to sell coffee in Boston.

The license was Massachusetts' first written mention of coffee.

It wasn't until the American Revolution that coffee overtook tea as the preferred beverage in the United States.

The Stamp Act of 1767 levied a hefty duty on American tea imports, and the colonies revolted in 1773.

As a result of the Boston Tea Party, Bostonians dumped the British East India Company's tea cargoes into the water.

Coffee consumption became a patriotic duty for all Americans after that.

Today, the United States leads the world in coffee consumption, consuming 450 million cups each day.

6. Coffee Received Pope Clement VIII's Approval

When coffee first came in Christian Europe, it was viewed with mistrust as a Muslim beverage.

When it first appeared in Venice in 1615, the local church criticized it, with many dubbing it Satan's "bitter invention."

The new drink was so divisive that Pope Clement VIII's advisers encouraged him to outlaw it.

He wouldn't do it until he'd tried it for himself. According to legend, after tasting it, the Pope exclaimed, "This devil's drink is excellent." We should baptize the demon to deceive him.” (8)

According to legend, the Pope chose to bless the coffee bean because he believed it was healthier for people than alcoholic beverages.

Whatever the reason, it granted Catholics all around the world permission to drink a cup of coffee without guilt.

7. Coffee has been outlawed at least six times throughout history.

Clement VIII was not the only one who thought coffee drinking was a good idea.

Coffee was outlawed in Mecca in 1511. The youthful governor, Khair-Beg, suspected that sarcastic lyrics about him were being penned in coffee shops and ordered that they be closed down.

The action sparked a flurry of discussion. Many worshipers drank coffee in preparation for late-night prayer vigils, while others believed that caffeine brought them closer to God.

Khair-ban Beg's did not turn out well. The Sultan of Cairo ruled that no prohibition could be imposed without his approval, and the governor was imprisoned and executed as a result.

In 1656, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Köprülü deemed coffee cafes to be hotbeds of sedition, and they were once again prohibited in Turkey.

The laws were removed after riots, but the Grand Vizier refused to give up.

He levied high taxes on coffee shops, figuring that if people were going to use them to plot against him, they should at least pay for it!

Charles II was concerned about the same thing. In 1675, Charles issued a proclamation prohibiting coffee cafes, saying that they drew "idle and disgruntled men," causing them to be distracted from their work and spreading scandalous rumor about the King.

The King's coffee-loving Ministers eventually convinced him to retract the edict just two days before it was to take effect.

Other attempts to outlaw coffee were tried in Constantinople, Germany, Sweden, and Prussia — but in each case, coffee aficionados triumphed.

8. The first Starbucks opened in 1971.

In 1971, the first Starbucks debuted in Seattle.

Starbucks was the world's leading coffee retailer in 2010 and maybe the most instantly known icon of coffee culture in the United States.

The first store opened in Seattle on March 31, 1971, and was named after a character in Hermann Melville's novel Moby-Dick.

Howard Schultz's hiring as director of retail operations eleven years later was a watershed moment in the company's history.

In 1983, Schultz visited Italy and was captivated by the country's coffee culture.

When he returned to Seattle, he persuaded the Starbucks founders to try out the coffee shop concept in the city.

The very first Starbucks caffè latte was served here.

The successful trial inspired Schultz to launch his own company, Il Giornale, in 1985, which sells brewed coffee and espresso beverages prepared using Starbucks coffee beans.

Il Giornale bought Starbucks two years later and renamed it Starbucks Corporation.

Starbucks now has over 22,000 locations in over 40 countries. There are approximately 87,000 drink options to pick from, so it's more than just a latte.

9. Sumatran Coffee Was Nearly Extinct Due to a Nineteenth-Century Plant Disease

Sumatra, Indonesia's largest island, produces some of the world's most distinctive coffees, but it's plantations were once nearly extinct.

A leaf rust pandemic attacked the coffee harvests at the end of the nineteenth century, destroying entire farms.

Farmers who relied on coffee for a living were forced to switch to other crops like rubber and tea.

Fortunately for Sumatran coffee's long-term survival, the Robusta coffee bean came to the rescue.

Robusta coffee is more disease resistant, and it now accounts for more than three-quarters of Indonesian coffee exports. Much of it comes from Sumatra's southern tip.

The greatest Sumatra coffee is considered one of the world's best gourmet coffees.

Sumatra produces the premium Mandheling, Ankola, and Lintong coffees, as well as Kopi Luwak, the world's most costly coffee made from civet cat excrement.

10. In Britain, the first instant coffee was invented.

In Britain, the first instant coffee was created.

While we may not know who invented coffee as a beverage, we do know who invented instant coffee.

In 1771, the British government granted a patent for the production of a "coffee compound."

The necessity of war drove the quest for a similar product in America.

Military leaders were eager to find a portable way to provide caffeine to their troops, and during the Civil War, an early type of instant coffee was supplied to soldiers in the form of a cake.

Alphonse Allais of France invented and patented a soluble version of instant coffee in 1881.

Instant coffee made its debut in New Zealand nine years later, when David Strang founded his own brand, Strang's Coffee, using his proprietary "dry hot-air" technology.

Instant coffee, on the other hand, did not become a commercial hit until 1910. Based on the work of a Japanese-American chemist named Satori Kato, George Washington, an American inventor of Belgian ancestry, invented his own instant coffee technology.

The popularity of the food grew even more during the First World War, when it was included in troops' rations.

However, there were still issues with instant coffee. Its flavor remained weak, and it did not dissolve well in water.

Max Morgenthaler, a scientist at the Swiss corporation Nestlé, created a novel procedure in 1937 that involved drying equal amounts of coffee extract and soluble carbohydrates.

Nescafe was the name of the product, and it's better flavor made it an instant hit.

So now you're an expert on the history of coffee!

We hope you enjoyed our journey through coffee's history.

We've had a lot of fun sharing these fascinating, surprising, and downright strange coffee facts with you. Knowing more about our favorite drink, in our opinion, helps it taste even better.