The First Historical Use of Coffee
Coffee is a very old luxury drink that existed even before beer and wine.
Its origins date back to the 14th or 15th century. One historical Arabian text
can be interpreted: that Gemaleddin, the Mufti of Aden had the first coffee
plantation in 1454. The seeds that were used came from the Abyssinian mountains.
It is assumed that the beans and leaved were chewed. Soon coffee brewing was
discovered. They didn’t use the beans just to prepare coffee, they were
also used as a snack, ground and mixed with fat. The fruit was also used to
make wine.
City psychiatrist and doctor Leonhard Rauwolf was the first European to describe
the oriental drink, saying: „It is black like ink and does good in
the stomach and the breast. It is to be drunk in the morning out of a deep
porcelain bowl“. Often coffee was used as a medicine for illness, and
less as a luxury drink. The spread of the „devil’s brew“,
as the church liked to say, became popular very slowly. The government and
church (whose word was taken very seriously then) were mistrustful of the
drink.
In 1592, the Italian scholar Alpinus, after a trip through Egypt,
drew a coffee tree and wrote, „This tree bears fruit which will be
a boon or banned.“ The first cafe in Italy came more than fifty years
later, and was built in Markus square in Venice. Despite accusations from
the church, the popularity of the Turkish drink increased quickly.
Foward to  The History of the Word Coffee
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