5 minutes

The history of coffee for us and the West

Dr..

Kamal Abdul Malik

08 April 2022

A few days ago my friends and I were here at Harvard University sipping cups of American filter coffee and talking about the possibility of organizing an international conference on coffee as a social drink and cafes as sites for social encounters and human gatherings, inviting academics, writers and artists from all over the world to talk about coffee as a symbol of social communication and world peace And we suggested that the invitees include members of diverse societies that drink coffee and attribute it to them, like us Arabs, especially our people in the Gulf, and like the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Austrians of the residents of Vienna, whom history considers the first coffee drinkers in Europe since 1683, Ethiopians, Colombians, and Italians. And, of course, any man or woman who lives in Paris.

We also suggested that the conference cover the history of coffee and coffeehouses, representations of coffee in world literature, music, and the arts, among other things.

Coffee is a drink steeped in history. It may have started in the countries of Abyssinia or Yemen, especially the Mocha region, for which mocha coffee was named after its name (mocha), and the Ottomans played a major role in the history of coffee, as they were credited with introducing the drink to Europe, so how was that?

Let me sit in my favorite seat and tell you the story of Europe’s discovery of coffee while sipping on my filtered American coffee (in the absence of Arabic coffee mixed with cardamom, I am here in a foreign country and longing to return to the Emirates and friends).

Oddly enough, in the mid-16th century, coffee was classified as an illicit beverage. The stimulating nature of coffee made it banned in Istanbul.

Indeed, a fatwa was issued that it was not permissible to drink coffee, and when the ships laden with coffee beans were seized upon their arrival at the port, the shipment was confiscated and thrown into the sea.

However, the fatwa was largely ignored, and people continued to brew and drink coffee as usual, until the turn of the century when the official ban was lifted.

The Ottomans began exporting their favorite drink to all parts of Europe.

In 1669 the Turkish ambassador introduced coffee to the Parisian court of Louis XIV.

In 1683 the Ottoman army besieged Vienna for the second time and could not take it and when the Austrians began to counterattack, the Ottomans fled, leaving everything behind - including 500 bags of green coffee beans.

No one knew what to do with it—except for the Polish Franz Kolczycki, who grew up in Istanbul and knew coffee and who later opened the first Vienna café, adding cream and honey to the bitter coffee to satisfy the tastes of Viennese, the Austrian capital.

Coffee entered Vienna with the Ottoman name "kahve", which is the origin of the word used by the peoples of the West today.

In the late 18th century in Paris, coffee, as a tonic and a gathering place for thinkers, contributed to the Enlightenment movement. Cafés in Paris were home to writers such as Voltaire and Diderot, and discussions of the Enlightenment.

The coffeehouses of London played an active role in strengthening this European intellectual movement, which focused on reason and individuality rather than tradition.

Drinking coffee has reasons, meanings, and suggestions in different cultures. In America and Canada, academic life cannot be imagined without coffee. In Egypt, drinking plain coffee (without sugar) is a basic ritual in mourning the deceased or the deceased. In Turkey, the customs and traditions associated with coffee may seem strange. To determine the "manhood" of the future groom, the bride brings a cup of coffee mixed with salt, a lot of salt to indicate that she is not interested, or a little to show that she wants to be associated with him.

If the suitor drinks the whole cup, he proves his desire to marry.

And in the hope of returning to the Emirates and drinking Arabic coffee with friends and relatives.

• Coffee is a drink steeped in history that may have originated in Abyssinia or Yemen.

• Researcher in the Department of Near Eastern Languages ​​and Civilizations at Harvard University, USA

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