Where Did Coffee Originate? Ethiopia, Kaldi & the First Cup
Coffee is a drink of the earth. In fact, out of all the other communal beverages in existence--beer, wine, whiskey--it is singularly (so we are told by many a child who take their first sip of it long before the acquired tastes develop) the one that tastes most like the earth. The “black water” often possesses dark and woody textures. The aromas are deep. The color is that of the soil from which it emerges, ranging from the reddish clay heavy soils of Kenya to the black and sooty soils of Brazil’s volcanic ranges.
Before I fell into the historical study of coffee, I assumed that coffee was so much a beverage of the earth that it likely had been around in some form or fashion for thousands of years. Many agricultural products that we now consume in mass have intricate roots in ancient civilizations. Beer, for example, goes back to at least 4000 BCE, when Sumerians created a “Hymn to Ninkasi,” an ode to the goddess of brewing. Wine goes back even further, to around 6000 BCE in an area in the modern country of Georgia. Without too much supposition, one might imagine coffee would at least go back to some tribal village in central Africa or South America by a few thousand years.
Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.
The story of coffee likely begins in Ethiopia, the same place where anthropologists determine the story of humanity began. As the legend goes, in 850 CE, Kaldi the goatherder, went looking for some goats that had wandered off from under his protection and guidance. After searching for some time, Kaldi dug further into some areas of high foliage and vegetation, only to find them munching on the bright red berries of a strange peregrine tree. Kaldi noticed that the berries seemed to have a spirited effect on his goats, and--ignoring present day wisdom to not eat objects of vegetation that one is not certain of--decided to consume the fruit himself. Kaldi’s inner goat was quickly channeled with a curious energy that he had previously never known. He brought the berries to the nearest place of worship and gave them to the head monk who--perhaps seeing the stimulated high Kaldi was exhibiting--quickly declared them the “Devil’s work” and cast them into the nearby fire, only slowly becoming aware of an intoxicating aroma cascade from the flames and across the room. The monk pulled the coffee embers from the fire, doused them with hot water, and brewed history’s first cup of joe.
The likelihood is that the story of Kaldi is a myth. It has all the elements of wild discovery, transgression, and even a certain kind of subliminal destiny. But after all, something as incredible and world changing as coffee needs a myth. Myths are tied to faiths, nations, people, and things that are so dear to us that without them we would lose some of our identity. For a drink that is consumed at a rate of around 2.25 billion cups per day, we might say that its identification across the world is itself of mythic proportions and, as such, if the story of Kaldi and the bean eating goats did not exist, we might need to make it up.
Whether or not there was a rural African shepherd named Kaldi and a caravan of hyperactive goats, two things are clear: first, coffee is a relatively new drink within the history of the world. There is no trace of the Kaldi myth before 1671 and there is no mention of coffee before the 15th century in any literary or archeological find. This means that most of human history has--surprisingly and woefully--lived without the drink that most of us today take for advantage. Coffee is likely no older than the printing press.
The second thing that is clear from the historical data--a point that is implicit in the story of Kaldi-- is that coffee likely emerged from religious communities in Ethiopia before quickly spreading to other countries and into modern capitalism. Historically, coffee was first and foremost a drink of religious importance and festival before it became the drink of modernity and civilization. It was a drink for the soul and the exaltation of the spirit. The monks initially may have considered it the “devil’s drink”, but its ability to promote imagination and fellowship became evident and they quickly absorbed its intoxicating beverage as a communal staple. It was a drink of people, of fellowship, of spirituality and imagination.
