The Coffee Stories – Where did coffee come from, and how it evolved in the history

It is without a doubt that coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world. This is evident in the prevalence of coffee products on the market and in the staggering number of coffee-oriented establishments worldwide. For example, Starbucks alone is present in 80 countries.

It is clear that coffee has won the world over, but how did it get to its current status? Where did its journey begin? And why is it even called coffee in the first place?

Coffee's Etymology

How did coffee get its name? The main theory is that it originated from the Arabic "qahwa" that Turkish borrowed and turned into "kahveh," which Dutch then similarly loaned, turning it into a more recognizable "koffie."

"Qahwa" reportedly refers to a kind of wine. The word is said to stem from a few varying roots: "qaha," which means to lack hunger since the drink was known to suppress the appetite; "quwwa," which means power or energy since it's a stimulating drink; and "Kaffa," a kingdom in medieval Ethiopia that exported the beans to Arabia.

There's an argument that "qahwah" didn't refer to the coffee berry, bean, or plant but to the coffee color. "Qhh" meant "dark color," and "qahwah" was allegedly its feminine form. No matter the real story behind coffee's name, it's pretty clear that it came from the Arabic language.

Coffee Legends

If you ask about coffee's origin, you'd likely be treated to a fantastic tale about an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi. According to legend, he first realized the potential of coffee beans when he noticed his goats becoming extra energetic after eating the red berries of a certain tree. They were so pumped that they refused to settle down and sleep for the night.

Intrigued, Kaldi decided to try a berry and found himself perking up. The exhilaration drove him to share his findings with a monk in a monastery close by. However, suspicious and disapproving, the monk threw the berries into the fire. This, of course, caused an enticing aroma to emanate, drawing the other monks to the source. They eagerly raked the roasted beans from

the embers, ground them up, and dissolved them in hot water. All that allegedly led to the first cup of coffee, and the rest was history. This places coffee's origin in Ethiopia.

Now, there are different versions of this story. That's usually inevitable with stories that were passed from generation to generation by mouth instead of through written accounts. Oral storytelling does confirm, however, that the earliest mention of coffee dates back to 9th century Ethiopia.

There are other legends as well. One involves a 13th-century Sufi mystic from Morocco who traveled to Ethiopia and observed some extraordinarily energetic birds feeding on berries. Curious, he tried the berries himself and felt a surge of vitality.

Another account tells the story of a healer who was banished from Mecca to a cave outside of Ousab in Arabia (a region that now spans across Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Famished, he started chewing berries from a nearby tree. Since they were too bitter for his enjoyment, he tried roasting them, which unfortunately hardened them. He then tried boiling them to soften them, but the resulting brown liquid emanated an enticing aroma that he was compelled to sample it. He found that drinking it revived him, leading him to believe it was a miracle drug.

Coffee's Discovery and Journey

Nonetheless, there are no records of where coffee was cultivated or consumed earlier than the 15th century, when it was documented that Yemen's Sufi monks used coffee to help with concentration while praying. There was also evidence that coffee was already an intentionally planted crop in the Yemeni district of Arabia at this time.

In the 16th century, coffee reached the Levant (an area that now encompasses Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and most of Turkey) and Persia (modern-day Iran). There was a great debate on whether it was halal in these mainly Muslim regions. This was clearly eventually settled as coffee became associated with Islamic traditions and practices. It was even linked to Muhammad's birthday. In fact, one of the coffee legends involves Muhammad being brought coffee by the archangel Gabriel as a replacement for wine, the consumption of which Islam forbade. Thanks to the pilgrimages to Mecca, word soon spread about this amazing "wine of Araby."

It was also in the 16th century when coffee traversed the Mediterranean and arrived in Europe. Coffee was imported to Venice from Egypt in 1580. It initially encountered disapproval from the Catholic Church, which perceived it as the devil's drink. Eventually, Pope Clement VIII tried drinking coffee and declared that the alleged Satan's drink was so delicious they couldn't possibly let the infidels have exclusive enjoyment of it; thus, he baptized coffee, noting as well that it was a better drink for the people than alcohol.

Before all this uproar in Italy, coffee had already made its way to Europe by way of Hungary, which had been invaded by the Turks earlier in the century. It also soon reached Vienna.

In 1575, French doctor Charles de l’Ecluse mentioned coffee in his Aromatum et simplicium aliquot medica-mentorum apud Indos nascientum historia. Later in the century, Englishmen who passed through portions of the Ottoman Empire reported that coffee was helpful in digestion, invigoration, and detoxification.

Coffee arrived in India through a Sufi saint in the 17th century. Still, its spread toward the Far East and Southeast can be attributed to the Dutch, who brought it to Japan and Indonesia, which became a dominant coffee producer, so much so that a colloquial name for coffee is based on one of the islands on the archipelago: Java.

The Philippines, which has the perfect climate and soil conditions, both in its lowlands and its mountains, got its introduction to coffee via a Spanish friar in 1740. It is one of the few countries that produce the four commercially viable coffee varieties: Arabica, Robusta, Liberica, and Excelsa.

Meanwhile, the French brought coffee to Vietnam in 1857. Trial plantings in the northern provinces expanded to the central regions. Before long, Vietnam had flourishing coffee plantations and remains one of the world's main exporters to date.

Coffee didn't reach the Americas until the 18th century. French naval officer and governor of Guadeloupe Gabriel de Clieu brought young coffee plants to the Caribbean in 1720. The seedlings thrived, and there were soon tens of thousands of coffee trees in the area, sparking the spread of the coffee industry in other countries in the West Indies, spreading up to Mexico and down to Brazil. The Americas soon became a major source of coffee to the world. By the time the Boston Tea Party happened in 1773, coffee was already more accessible and many Americans began to make the switch from drinking tea to coffee.

The Rise of the Coffee Shop

Before coffee became a household staple, people enjoyed this invigorating elixir in coffee houses. Despite the ongoing debate on whether coffee was halal (permissible) or haram (forbidden) in the early 1500s, the Islamic societies in Arabia still began to hold coffee in the center of public life as coffee houses in the sprawling cities of the area, particularly Yemen, Cairo, Aleppo, and, of course, Mecca.

Coffee was actually declared haram during the Ottoman empire, but records show that many of the earliest coffee houses were established in Turkey. As the stories go, two Syrian men moved

to Istanbul (called Constantinople at that time), bringing coffee beans with them and opening separate coffee shops in Tahtekale, following the example of Yemeni coffee houses.

The Ottoman Empire reached far and wide, bringing coffee and coffee houses to areas within their sphere of influence. Similarly, the medieval Catholic military order Knights of St. John brought enslaved Turkish Muslims to Malta, who then introduced coffee to the Maltese, especially to its high society. The Turks were hailed for being skillful makers of this novel concoction and they soon opened coffee shops all over the island.

The Great Siege of Malta happened in 1565. In 1629, the first European coffee house - other than those within the Ottoman Empire and Malta - opened in Venice. By the 1700s, there were already hundreds of coffee shops in Venice alone.

Come the 1650s, the first-ever coffee house in England opened. Now, there are three contenders for this title, but based on written records, specifically those from English diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys, the true contest is between the coffee house established by Levant Company merchant Daniel Edwards and his Greek servant Pasqua Rosée in Cornhill, London in 1651 and the coffee house opened by a Jew named Jacob in Oxford also in 1651. Currently, in that exact location in Oxford stands The Grand Café.

The third contender is Queen's Lane Coffee House, which opened in 1654, also in Oxford. It clearly opened after those mentioned above, but its claim of being the oldest coffee house in England is backed by the fact that it is still open up to now. So it may not have been the first, but it is undoubtedly the oldest. Incidentally, the current owner is a Turkish immigrant. In any case, by 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffee houses across England.

A little later, in Germany, the first coffee houses sprung in the North Sea area around 1673, followed by those in Hamburg, which opened around 1677. Even though coffee was served at the court of Frederick Willaim, ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, as early as 1675, Berlin didn't get its own coffee house until 1721.

A decade later in 1683, Vienna, which had also been under the Ottoman Empire, had its first coffee house after the Battle of Vienna. A Polish military officer, Georg Franz Kolschitzky, used supplies left by the defeated Turks. Taking the coffee beans, he started his coffee business and pioneered the custom of adding milk and sugar to coffee.

Incidentally, the Viennese coffee house culture that emerged and developed until the 19th century had scientists, intellectuals, artists, financiers, and bon vivants congregating in coffee houses, sparking a special multicultural microcosm that led to different manners of coffee preparation.

This was a sort of precursor for the traditional coffee house society that the succeeding generations in various regions of the globe produced. In different countries, the coffee house came to be a place where folks from different walks of life could congregate and participate in an informal exchange of ideas.

Coffee in the Modern World

In modern times, coffee’s story takes on the different “coffee waves” as chapters.The term "third wave coffee" is something that's bandied about in discussions of coffee trends, but these coffee waves simply refer to the stages in the coffee industry. Each wave is represented by significant attributes that changed the industry and impacted the global culture.

Officially, there are three waves of coffee. The First Wave refers to when coffee became a commodity, and its consumption saw exponential growth. The second wave involves the rise of branded coffee chains. And the third wave is all about attention to the coffee's origin and method of production.

Some people also mention the fourth and fifth waves of coffee. Apparently, the fourth wave focuses on the science of coffee, while the fifth wave concerns the creation of smart boutique concepts.

First Wave (the 1800s)

Around the 1700s and 1800s, coffee became a crop grown in other regions. It became a prolific product, and brands we know today, such as Nestlé and Lavazza, were founded. Henri Nestlé founded his company in 1866, marketing milk-based baby food. He died in 1890, and his successors didn't produce Nestlé's coffee brand, Nescafé, until the beginning of World War II.

Luigi Lavazza, on the other hand, was really all about coffee. He studied, innovated, and conceptualized coffee, pioneering the production of blends. His company was founded in 1895, and since then, Lavazza has been one of the celebrated names associated with coffee.

Coffee was making significant strides in history, and coffee houses appeared in different areas of the globe. For instance, coffee was introduced to the Japanese in the 19th century, and in 1858, the first European-style coffee house opened in 1888.

Japan's coffee industry seemed to have suffered a temporary setback shortly after the establishment of this coffee house, but it experienced a revival in the early 20th century. By the 1930s, there were more than 30,000 across the country. From this point on, coffee and coffee houses started to deeply ingrain themselves in the fabric of Japanese culture and daily life.

Instant coffee entered the scene in the early 1900s. The first attempt at producing instant coffee was in 1890 by New Zealander David Strang. Still, better versions were developed in the succeeding decades until George Constant Louis Washington of the U.S.A. came up with something that could be marketed commercially.

Around 1933, years before Nescafé was launched, another big name in the coffee industry started its life. Illy opened its first-ever coffee shop in Trieste, Italy. While Lavazza credits itself for inventing the concept of blending, Francesco Illy innovated the Illetta, which is regarded as the prototype for modern espresso machines.

Second Wave (the 1970s)

Coffee shops and cafés soon became places the presence of which was just taken for granted. A thriving metropolis would likely have a good number of coffee-oriented establishments. It was around the late '60s when coffee shops started taking on signature labels. For instance, the first Peet's Coffee opened in Berkeley, California in 1966.

This wave was brought forth by the consumers’ coffee appreciation going up a notch. Their standards were raised as they began to try out different coffee options. They naturally sought better quality and began to identify which brands stood out and provided a next-level coffee experience.

The following popular chains came to life during this time. These were some of the leading coffee brands that were representative of this era. They demonstrate the evolution that coffee culture had achieved at this point. After convenience and accessibility had been established in the First Wave, quality and variety next became the priority. The brief background for each coffee brand listed below shows how these shops elevated expectations from consumers, and how coffee franchises became a global matter.

• Peet's Coffee

Dutch immigrant Alfred Peet grew up helping his father with their coffee grindery. He first moved to London at the age of 18 and got a job with Twinings coffee and tea company. He also lived in New Zealand and Indonesia before crossing the Pacific to work for a coffee and tea importer in San Francisco. When he finally opened Peet's Coffee, Tea & Spices, he sold hand-roasted coffee, not drinks. He opened four more branches, and his shops simply became known as Peet's Coffee and Tea. It was his intention to bring better coffee to Americans and he was thus dubbed the "godfather of gourmet coffee in the U.S." In 1979, he sold his business to Sal Bonavita.

• Starbucks

This is the most famous coffeehouse chain right now, and its history is intertwined with Peet's. Its founders were Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker. These three opened the first Starbucks at Seattle's Pike Place Market. They initially sourced their beans from Peet's until Alfred Peet trained their own roaster. However, they decided to buy Peet's coffee in 1984, and, in 1987, they chose to sell Starbucks to their former director of marketing, Howard Schultz, so that they could focus on Peet's.

Schultz was C.E.O. from 1986 to 2000 and was responsible for the franchise's aggressive expansion. He returned as C.E.O. a few more times, most recently stepping down to give way to the current C.E.O., Laxman Narasimhan.

• Costa Coffee

Across the pond, also in 1971, Sergio Costa founded Costa Coffee in London. It started out as a wholesale operation that supplied roasted coffee to caterers as well as specialist Italian coffee shops. British hotel and restaurant company Whitbread bought it in 1995 and later sold it to The Coca-Cola Company. It is currently the largest coffeehouse chain in the U.K. and the second largest worldwide.

These three are the key players in the Second Wave, but other famous coffee chains like Caribou Coffee, Seattle's Best, and the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf also began during this period.

Third Wave (the 2000s)

While the Second Wave is recognized for bringing specialty coffee to the masses, it was criticized for focusing too much on the "coffee shop experience" at the expense of bean quality. As a reaction, the Third Wave of coffee shops placed emphasis on the beans. This gave rise to the popularity of artisan coffee shops.

While the Second Wave was dominated by regular coffee-drinking folk whose exposure had them raising both their standards and expectations, the Third Wave bred even more sophisticated coffee lovers who chose their drink based on such details as the origin of the coffee beans and the processes (harvest, roasting, and/or brewing) used. This trait coincides with the global call for sustainability and mindful living.

The Third Wave also introduced the barista as a connoisseur. No longer are baristas mere servers; they have become experts with specialized knowledge and skills. All these Third Wave

attributes are present in the following coffee shops, the names of which are strongly associated with this period.

• Stumptown Coffee

Stumptown Coffee began in Portland, where it opened its flagship café and roastery in 1999. Its founder Duane Sorenson personally visited coffee farms and willingly paid high prices for beans. He believed in paying well for quality and invested well in his employees, offering them various perks such as a full-time on-staff massage therapist. It seemed to be a choice that served the business well since it has received many awards, including Roaster of the Year in 2006 and pioneered cold brew coffee in nitro cans. Peet's Coffee bought Stumptown Coffee in 2015.

• Blue Bottle Coffee

W. James Freeman started Blue Bottle Coffee in Oakland in 2002. He initially set up a home-delivery service for coffee roasted in small batches, but he eventually stopped the delivery and simply opened a traditional coffee shop. Since then, the company has grown globally, and Nestlé acquired majority stake in 2017.

• Barista Coffee

Barista Coffee opened in 2009. It claims to serve only exceptional coffees made with beans from the finest roasters worldwide and prepared by the best baristas in Portland. Right now, it has four shops in the city. It might not have grown as fast and wide as other coffee shops, but it has earned a name for the quality of its offerings.

The Fourth-Fifth Waves (the 2010s)

We're upon these recent waves, and they mostly have to do with GenZ's easy-going lifestyle. The fourth wave is mainly about the layman learning about coffee science and making specialty coffee drinks at home. Finally, the fifth wave is about coffee shops implementing smart boutique concepts such as customer-centric service. The consumers know what they want, and they can make it themselves or specify what it is when placing their order.

Since consumers are making the effort to turn into connoisseurs, there has been an increase in the demand for coffee devices. The following are the most popular among those who are serious about getting their favorite coffee drink even when they're stuck at home, e.g., during the COVID-19 lockdown. These coffee makers are listed in ascending order, popularity-wise.

• French press

Those in North America call it French press, but in other places, it's known as cafetière, coffee plunger, stamp pot, or coffee press. It consists of a beaker and a mesh piston. First, you put coarsely ground coffee in the beaker and add hot water. Then, slowly plunge the piston to extract the oils and flavonoids from the ground coffee.

A French press is an excellent option for those who want affordable gear to make full-bodied, flavorful coffee at home. Its brewing method is fast and consistent. It doesn't take up too much space or require any special pouring technique.

• Moka pot

It is an electric or stovetop top coffee maker consisting of a bottom chamber or boiler for holding the water, a basket or funnel-shaped metal filter for carrying ground coffee, and a collecting chamber. Heating the water leads to raised vapor pressure that forces the water up, through the ground coffee, and into the collecting chamber.

A moka pot is the right coffee maker for those who prefer to achieve a strong, intense, full-bodied espresso-like coffee using straightforward, not to mention inexpensive, gear.

• Chemex

This consists of an hourglass-shaped glass flask, a funnel-like conical neck, a heat-proof wooden collar, and thick paper filters. It's essentially a manual pour-over style dripper-cum-coffee pot. It allows oil removal, resulting in a "cleaner" coffee with caffeine and flavor extracted while also having the bitter notes and the cholesterol-elevating compound cafestol eliminated.

Many like Chemex for its efficient filter and all-glass construction, which guarantees no flavor contamination from the material of the coffeemaker.

• Aeropress

This is described as a combination dripper, espresso maker, and French press all rolled into one efficient, portable, and easy-to-use machine. Brewing is a simple matter of adding medium-fine ground coffee and water, stirring and brewing for about 30 seconds, and then pressing coffee into a mug.

Many laud this product for being portable, versatile, and customizable. It can be used to make different types of coffee drinks, including regular hot coffee, latte, cold brew, etc.

• V60 by Hario

This is a dripper with a uniquely effective design. It can alter the flavor of coffee, allowing its specific tailoring based on preference by simply adjusting the brewing method. It comes with a dripper (conical- or trapezoid-shaped) with spiral ribs for a smoother extraction and a large hole for extraction that's more akin to that of a cloth filter.

The V60 is a favorite among baristas, which makes a lot of sense since it's a product developed under the guidance of some of the best baristas in the world.

Conclusion

Coffee has certainly had a long and colorful journey thus far. From its discovery in the Middle Ages and through its ongoing evolution, it's clear that it has entrenched itself in daily life in every area of the world. The international coffee industry and culture continue to grow and develop as the potential of coffee is further explored. Coffee lovers all over the world are eager to find out where the next wave will come from and where it will take them.

Bonus - The Story of Coffee

The below artwork/infographic was created by our Chief Branding Officer, Miki. You can download the high-resolution copy of this below!

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