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Since the Boston Tea Party, Americans have been crazy for coffee, choosing it as their caffeine fix. But obviously that’s not the origin of java. Naturally, the history of coffee goes back much earlier.

A video that goes back to the first mug of coffee brewed and sipped, and then it tracks the spread of coffee around the globe. All of us read the Ethiopian legend which says the goat herder Kaldi found the potential of the coffee beans. But what happened afterwards?

So get out your Chemex, grind some beans, boil some water, and sit down to watch this history of coffee with a cup of your own.

Full story - the history of coffee

According to the legend, the energizing effects of the coffee bean were first uncovered by a goat herder called Kaldi, that lived on the Ethiopian plateau way back during the 9th century.

One day Kaldi discovered that after his heard had grazed on the cherry of the coffee plant they seemed to possess limitless power, definitely more than the rest of his animals. As the tale goes, this left them as well stimulated to sleep in the evening, as their bundles of power had them bounding all over the place.

A short history

After Kaldi saw how " playful" his goats became after consuming the coffee berries, he went to the local monastery to let the monks know. A monk produced a mixture from the berries and was able to keep up a lot later praying.

News of this new brew spread right into Egypt and into the Arabian peninsula, where coffee traveled east and west, finally getting in southeast Asia and the Americas. And it's been prominent since.

But if we are to follow facts only, and not tales, the oldest confirmed evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the early 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen, spreading quickly to Mecca and Medina. By the 16th century, it had gotten to the remainder of the Middle East, South India (Karnataka), Persia, Turkey, the Horn of Africa, and northern Africa. Coffee then infected the Balkans, Italy, and to the rest of Europe, in addition to Southeast Asia and regardless of the restrictions enforced throughout the 15th century by spiritual leaders in Mecca and Cairo, and later on by the Catholic Church.

Etymology

It turns out the word "coffee" originate from Arabic. The word got in the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, subsequently borrowed from the Arabic qahwah.

There is an even more intriguing hypothesis of the beginning of the word, which you can read on Wikipedia here.

Modern Coffee Background

The modern times race for comfort and efficiency recognized that people are "wasting" too much time making coffee. This is how instant coffee was invented. David Strang, a New Zealander invented it in 1889. Freeze-dried coffee was developed in 1938.

Decaffeinated coffee was created by Ludwig Roselius in 1903, filling a demand for individuals who are hypersensitive to caffeine.

The coffee filter, the base of one of the most popular coffee developing approach, the drip coffee, was invented by Melitta Bentz in 1908.

Achille Gaggia created the modern-day espresso maker in 1946. The initial pump-driven espresso maker was made in 1960.

Today coffee is still one of the world's most preferred beverages. Brazil is still the world's largest producer of coffee.