Coffee Timeline
Excerpt from UTNE READER, Nov/Dec 94, by Mark Schapiro, “Muddy Waters”
Prior to 1000 A.D.
Members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia notice that they get an energy boost when they eat a certain berry, ground up and mixed with animal fat.
1000 A.D.
Arab traders bring coffee back to their homeland and cultivate the plant for the first time on plantations. They also began to boil the beans, creating a drink they call “qahwa” (literally, that which prevents sleep).
1453
Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by Ottoman Turks. The world’s first coffee shop, Kiva Han, open there in 1475. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.
1511
Khair Beg, the corrupt governor of Mecca, tries to ban coffee for feat that its influence might foster opposition to his rule. The sultan sends word that coffee is sacred and has the governor executed.
1600
Coffee, introduced to the West by Italian traders, grabs attention in high places. In Italy, Pope Clement VIII is urged by his advisers to consider that favorite drink of the Ottoman Empire part of the infidel threat. However, he decides to “baptize” it instead, making it an acceptable Christian beverage.
1607
Captain John Smith helps to found the colony of Virginia at Jamestown. It’s believed that he introduced coffee to North America.
1645
First coffeehouse opens in Italy.
1652
First coffeehouse opens in England. Coffee houses multiply and become such popular forums for learned and not so learned – discussion that they are dubbed “penny universities” (a penny being the price of a cup of coffee).
1668
Coffee replaces beer as New York’s City’s favorite breakfast drink.
1668
Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse opens in England and is frequented by merchants and maritime insurance agents. Eventually it becomes Lloyd’s of London, the best-known insurance company in the world.
1672
First coffeehouse opens in Paris.
1675
The Turkish Army surrounds Vienna. Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a Pole who had lived in Turkey, slips through the enemy lines to lead relief forces to the city. The fleeing Turks leave behind sacks of “dry black fodder” that Kolschitzky recognizes as coffee. He claims it as his reward and opens central Europe’s first coffee house. He also establishes the habit of refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk.
1690
With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon and in their East Indian colony – Java, source of the brew’s nickname.
1713
The Dutch unwittingly provide Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose descendants will produce entire Western coffee industry when in 1723 French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu steals a seedling and transports it to Martinique. Within 50 years and official survey records 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually, 90 percent of the world’s coffee spreads from this plant.
1721
First coffee house opens in Berlin.
1727
The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start when Lieutenant colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta is sent by government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only does he settle the dispute, but also strikes up a secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana’s governor. Although France guarded its New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said good-bye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee.
1732
Johann Sebastian Bach composes his Kaffee-Kantate. Partly an ode to coffee and partly a stab at the movement in Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee (it was thought to make them sterile), the cantata includes the aria, “Ah! How sweet coffee taste! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee.”
1773
The Boston Tea Party makes drinking coffee a patriotic duty in America.
1775
Prussia’s Frederick the Great tries to block imports of green coffee, as Prussia’s wealth is drained. Public outcry changes his mind.
1886
Former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend “Maxwell House,” after the hotel in Nashville, TN where it’s served.
Early 1900’s
In Germany, afternoon coffee becomes a standard occasion. The derogatory term “KaffeeKlatsch” is coined to describe women’s gossip at these affairs. Since broadened to mean relaxed conversation in general.
1900
Hills Bros. begins packing roast coffee in vacuum tins, spelling the end of the ubiquitous local roasting shops and coffee mills.
1901
The first soluble “instant” coffee is invented by Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago.
1903
German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turn a batch of ruined coffee beans over to researchers, who perfect the process of removing caffeine from the beans without destroying the flavor. He markets it under the brand name “Sanka.” Sanka is introduced to the United States in 1923.
1906
George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, notices a powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation, he creates the first mass-produced instant coffee (his brand is called Red E Coffee).
1907
In less than a century Brazil accounted for 97% of the world’s harvest.
1920
Prohibition goes into effect in United States. Coffee sales boom.
1938
Having been asked by Brazil to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses, Nestle company invents freeze-dried coffee. Nestle develops Nescafe and introduces it in Switzerland.
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. Back home, widespread hoarding leads to coffee rationing.
1946
In Italy, Achilles Gaggia perfects his espresso machine. Cappuccino is named for the resemblance of its color to the robes of the monks of the Capuchin order.
1969
One week before Woodstock the Manson Family murders coffee heiress Abigail Folger as she visits with friend Sharon Tate in the home of filmmaker Roman Polanski.
1971
Starbucks opens its first store in Seattle’s Pike Place public market, creating a frenzy over fresh-roasted whole bean coffee.