All about coffeeUkers, William H. (William Harrison)
History
All about coffee
Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
Coffee; Coffee Industry; Drinking customs
A recently unearthed and little known version of coffee's origin shows
how features of both the Omar tradition and the Gemaleddin story may be
combined by a professional Occidental tale-writer[35]:
Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, a poor Arab was
traveling in Abyssinia. Finding himself weak and weary, he stopped
near a grove. For fuel wherewith to cook his rice, he cut down a
tree that happened to be covered with dried berries. His meal being
cooked and eaten, the traveler discovered that these half-burnt
berries were fragrant. He collected a number of them and, on
crushing them with a stone, found that the aroma was increased to a
great extent. While wondering at this, he accidentally let the
substance fall into an earthen vessel that contained his scanty
supply of water.
A miracle! The almost putrid water was purified. He brought it to
his lips; it was fresh and agreeable; and after a short rest the
traveler so far recovered his strength and energy as to be able to
resume his journey. The lucky Arab gathered as many berries as he
could, and having arrived at Aden, informed the mufti of his
discovery. That worthy was an inveterate opium-smoker, who had been
suffering for years from the influence of the poisonous drug. He
tried an infusion of the roasted berries, and was so delighted at
the recovery of his former vigor that in gratitude to the tree he
called it _cahuha_ which in Arabic signifies "force".
Galland, in his analysis of the Arabian manuscript, already referred to,
that has furnished us with the most trustworthy account of the origin of
coffee, criticizes Antoine Faustus Nairon, Maronite professor of
Oriental languages at Rome, who was the author of the first printed
treatise on coffee only,[36] for accepting the legends relating to Omar
and the Abyssinian goatherd. He says they are unworthy of belief as
facts of history, although he is careful to add that there is _some_
truth in the story of the discovery of coffee by the Abyssinian goats
and the abbot who prescribed the use of the berries for his monks, "the
Eastern Christians being willing to have the honor of the invention of
coffee, for the abbot, or prior, of the convent and his companions are
only the mufti Gemaleddin and Muhammid Alhadrami, and the monks are the
dervishes."
Amid all these details, Jardin reaches the conclusion that it is to
chance we must attribute the knowledge of the properties of coffee, and
that the coffee tree was transported from its native land to Yemen, as
far as Mecca, and possibly into Persia, before being carried into Egypt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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