Coffee
Timeline
Stone Age | Some anthropologists believe the first use of caffeine containing plants may have been as early as 600,000 BCE. | |
900 BCE | Homer makes reference to a mysterious black and bitter beverage with the power to ward off sleep ... a reference repeated in several Arabian legends from the same period. | |
850 | Legendary discovery of coffee by an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi. One night his goats don't return home. When he finds them, they are dancing around a shrub with red berries. After trying the berries himself, he too starts dancing. He later speaks with local monks who make a drink of the berries. [Details] | |
1100 | First coffee trees are cultivated on the Arabian peninsula. Coffee beans are first boiled by Arabs making qahwa --- "that which prevents sleep". [More Info] | |
1450-1475 | Arabia. Coffee cultivation and drinking spreads rapidly in Yemen, at first for medicinal or religious purposes, such as promoting alertness during long nights of devotional exercises. 1 | |
1475 | The worlds first coffee shop, Kiva Han, opens in Constantinople. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fail to provide her with her daily quota of coffee. [More Info] | |
1475 - 1500 | Arabia. Dervishes spread the use of coffee to Medina and Mecca. Secular use becomes more prominent, in part because wine is forbidden by the Koran. Coffee houses are established and coffee becomes a much desired luxury. Many holy men begin to attack coffee as also contrary to the Koran. 1 | |
1511 | Khair Bey, the governor of Mecca, tries to ban coffee for fear that its influence might foster opposition to his rule. Coffee merchants are temporarily shut down in Constantinople. After a week long "reign of terror", the sultan sends word that coffee is sacred and has the governor executed. | |
1529 | The Turkish army, fleeing Vienna after being defeated, leaves behind bags of coffee. Franz Georg Kolshitzky, the man responsible for Vienna's victory, claims the coffee as his reward and establishes central Europe's first coffee house. [Details] | |
1542 | Arabia/Turkey. The coffee controversy spreads throughout the Ottoman Empire, as coffee --the "Wine of Islam"-- becomes a regular article of diet in all classes. Sultan Suleiman the Great bans coffee in 1542, but coffee houses multiply in Constantinople. 1 | |
c. 1600 | Pope Clemente VIII was asked to place a ban on coffee drinking, he refused saying, "This beverage is so delicious it would be a sin to let only misbelievers drink it!" His subsequent "baptism" of coffee put the issue to rest. | |
1607 | Coffee is brought to the New World by Captain John Smith, founder of Virginia at Jamestown. Canadian historians claim it had previously arrived in Canada. | |
1616 | The Dutch smuggle a coffee plant into Europe and attempt cultivation, but fail. | |
1652 | First coffee house opens in Britain. [Details] | |
1654 | First coffee house opens in Italy. | |
1668 | Coffee replaces beer as New York's City's favourite breakfast drink. | |
1672 | First coffee house opens in Paris. | |
Dec 23, 1675 | In response to the Women's Petition Against Coffee, King Charles II closes all coffee houses in Britain, but reversed his decision Jan 8th when faced with public protest. [Details] | |
c. 1685 | The Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially. A coffee plant is smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha and transported to Ceylon and their East Indian colony at Java for cultivation. | |
1685 | Treatise on coffee, tea and chocolate published by French druggist Dufour, titled "Traitez nouveaux & curieux du café du thé et du chocolate". [Details] | |
1721 | The first coffeehouse opens in Berlin. | |
1723 | Coffee plants are introduced in the Americas for cultivation. Gabriel de Clieu, a French naval officer, transports a seedling to Martinique. By 1777, 19 million coffee plants are cultivated on the island. | |
1727 | The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start from seedlings smuggled out of Paris. | |
1763 | Venice has over 2,000 coffee shops. | |
1777 | Frederick the Great of Prussia tries to block the importation of green coffee because it is competing with local products. He reverses his decision because of public outcry. 2 [Details] | |
1822 | The prototype of the first espresso machine is created in France. | |
1869 | Coffee leaf rust appears in Ceylon and destroys most of the plantations in India, Ceylon and other parts of Asia within the next 10 years. | |
1880's | Caffinated soft drinks are first invented. | |
1882 | The New York Coffee Exchange opens. | |
1886 | Former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend "Maxwell House," after the hotel in Nashville, TN where it's served. | |
1903 | German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius gives a batch of ruined coffee beans to a researcher, who perfects the process of removing caffeine from beans without destroying the flavor. Roselius markets the "de-caffinated" coffee under the name "Sanka", which is introduced to the U.S. in 1923. | |
1905 | The first commercial espresso machine is manufactured in Italy. | |
1908 | The invention of the worlds first drip coffeemaker. Melitta Bentz makes a filter using blotting paper. | |
1910 | German decaffeinated coffee is introduced to the U.S. by Merck & Co., under the name Dekafa. | |
1933 | Dr. Ernest Illy develops the first automatic espresso machine. | |
1938 | Nescafé instant coffee (freeze dried) is invented by the Nestlé company to assist the Brazilian government in solving its coffee surplus problem. | |
1940 | The US imports 70 percent of the world coffee crop. | |
1942 | During W.W.II, American soldiers are issued instant Maxwell House coffee in their ration kits. In the U.S., widespread hoarding leads to coffee rationing. | |
1962 | American per-capita coffee consumption peaks at more than three cups a day. | |
1971 | First Starbucks opens in Seattle. | |
1995 | Coffee is the worlds most popular beverage. More than 400 billion cups are consumed each year. |
References
- Austin G. "A Chronology of Psychoactive Substance Use".
- Scientific American. Jun 1998.