THE HISTORY OF THE MOST POPULAR DRINK IN THE WORLD:

Though drinking coffee in the Western world is relatively new (only 300 years old or so), coffee and coffee lovers have been around a very long time.

Can you guess how long ago coffee was discovered?

The first definitive archeological proof dates back to 800 BC (over 2800 years ago!). Homer and various Arabian legends make reference to it, so it might have been around even longer than that. They called it a black, bitter drink with stimulating effects.

Some say a goat herder named Kaldi first discovered the beans after his sheep ate them off some plants and kept him up all night with their jitters and constant baaaing. He tried the beans, too, and found they gave him a bit of pizzazz to make it through long days of herding goats. There’s also proof that indicates coffee was used for medicinal purposes. Though there are many stories as to how coffee was discovered leaving us in a bit of a fog, there is a certainty of where it originated.

Coffee originally came from what we now know as Ethiopia. From Ethiopia, it spread to many African nations including Yemen, Arabia and Egypt. The first coffee trees were cultivated on the Arabian peninsula around 1100 AD, and the drink was called qahwa. It didn’t take long for the idea of sitting around with friends, drinking a cup of coffee to catch on and in 1475 AD, the first coffee shop opened in Constantinople, followed by the opening of two coffee houses!

With European traders exploring the world, coffee entered the European markets in the late 1500's through the port of Venice. Italians, famous today for their espresso and lattes, didn’t take long to open their first coffee houses, too!

Coffee became popular. Coffee reached the new world, and coffee houses opened up in London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. It was becoming chic and the drink of choice for many Europeans.

The growing demand for coffee (and its incredibly high price) compelled scientists to find other suitable climates where the coffee plant would flourish – ideally places under European control like Martinique and the Antilles (the French). England, Spain and Portugal didn’t want to get left behind and found places in Asia and the Americas they had colonized to plant the crop. These plants were smuggled out of Europe countries, and there’s proof that the first Brazilian coffee seedlings came from Paris!

Coffee became popular worldwide both for its flavor and sometimes for political reasons. In Italy, eighteenth century men considered it an “intellectual beverage.” In fewer than 200 years after coffee was introduced in Italy, Venice alone had over 2,000 coffee houses so that men could sit around and intellectualize, philosophize, and politicize about the world. Coffee houses were the gathering places of the intelligentsia of society. In fact, both the French and American revolutions were born in coffee houses. So it’s no wonder that in the 17th century the English king forbade his subjects to gather anywhere coffee was sold.

One of the biggest reasons coffee is the beverage of choice in the United States dates back to England’s high tea taxes. The “Yankees” didn’t want to pay those taxes, dumped loads of tea in the Boston Harbor, and took to drinking coffee. Over 200 years later, and those Yankees are still drinking coffee.

Today, coffee is the world’s most popular beverage and comes second only to oil as a world commodity. Over 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed each and every year.

COFFEE COMES TO COLOMBIA

In the 16th century, the Spanish conquest reached Colombia. The conquistadors and earlier colonists exploited natives from Colombia, forcing them to mine for precious metals found in Colombia. Even today, Colombia is known for its precious emeralds.

Colombia is rich in diversity from its vegetation to minerals. It didn’t take long to realize that coffee was a great commodity and imperative to the Colombian economy. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that coffee emerged as the principle export from Colombia. Revenue from taxes from coffee bolstered the economy and that money was invested the industrial sector of Colombia. Other exports have remained relatively minor in Colombia and coffee exports from Colombia accounted for 60% of all export earnings up until the late 1980s.

Coffee has always been an integral part of the Colombian economy. Colombian coffee fame, though, has a lot to do with Juan Valdez ®. Colombian coffee has always been considered the best in the world. With the Juan Valdez ® label and advertising campaign, Colombian coffee and coffee reputation was brought to the forefront of the coffee world. Thanks to the Colombian Coffee Federation and Juan Valdez ® , everybody, not just coffee connoisseurs, now recognizes Colombian coffee as being the best in the world.