Figaro Coffee

What is Coffee?

Coffee beans come from coffee cherries which are the fruit of the coffee tree. Each cherry contains two beans. The coffee tree is an evergreen tropical shrub that only grows in countries that belong to the “Coffee Belt.” The belt wraps around the earth ans is bound by the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. The Philippines belongs to this special area and is one of only fifty-three countries that produce coffee.

History of Coffee

There are different versions of the legend of the discovery of coffee, one of which involves a goatherd called Kaldi. One day, while Kaldi's goats grazed, he noticed that they became restless after eating strange berries from a shrub. He tried the berries himself and he, too, became restless.

Another legend tells the story of the dervish Omar, known for his ability to heal the sick by prayer. Exiled from his hometown in Mocha to a cave in the dessert and nearing starvation, Omar chewed on berries from a shrub growing nearby. Finding the berries too bitter, he roasted them, hoping to improve the flavor. He decided the berries need boiling to soften them. He drank the resulting fragrant brew and was instantly revitalized, remaining in this state for several days.

In Arabia , monks usually hold long services at night and would fall asleep during prayers. The head priest then gave them coffee to keep them awake for prayers. In 1511, the ruler of Mecca though that coffee caused drunkenness so he forbade drinking it

In the 16 th century, coffee drinking spread throughout Turkey and the first coffeehouse was opened in Constantinople .

When the Turkish army invaded Vienna in 1683, they brought along coffee with them. When they were defeated by the Polish, all their belongings were confiscated and burned. Part of the loot was coffee that got roasted in the process. This was how coffee started in Europe .

In 1660, a ship carrying coffee from Egypt arrived at the port in Marseilles , France . The famous French ruler Louis XIV received a Turkish sultan in his court who gave him coffee as a gift. The first French coffeehouse was opened soon after in Marseilles .

Up until the 17 th century, all coffee came from Yemen in Africa . It was from the Port of Mocha (Al Mukha in Arabic) that the first coffee shipment came from. It was in this place across the Red Sea from Ethiopia (where coffee grew wild) that coffee was first cultivated and commercialized. Because these were the first beans that became popular in Europe , “Mocha” then became synonymous with coffee. Even when chocolate or cocoa was first tasted in Europe it tasted similar to coffee and was then also referred to as mocha.

Coffee was successfully planted and grown in the French colonies in the West Indies and in the Dutch colonies in the East Indies (now known as Indonesia ). From Indonesia or Java, coffee may have traveled to the Philippines due to the proximity of Borneo and other Indonesian islands to the Mindanao provinces.

Another way that coffee may have reached the Philippines through the Galleon Trade and also through the Spanish friars who brought with them the coffees from Europe when they brought Christianity to the Philippines shores

A marker in the Lipa, Batangas cathedral states that Spanish friars came around 1750 and it is also in Lipa and San Jose where the first coffee trees were planted

In other parts of the world, the British also started to drink coffee in 1652. The first London coffeehouse was opened by a Greek named Pasqua Rosee who was brought back from Turkey as a servant to a London merchant. The merchant gave Pasqua the opportunity to open his own business.

By 1670 there were about 3,000 coffeehouses in England . The coffeehouses became meeting places where people talked, argued, and discussed politics. These coffeehouses also became known as “penny universities”

In the early 18 th century, coffee was brought to Brazil by a messenger of the ruler of Brazil who smuggled coffee seeds from French Guiana hidden in a bouquet of flowers. That time, no one was allowed to take coffee seeds out of the country but the messenger became friendly with the French governor's wife who put the seeds in the bouquet and was able to get some free seeds out of the country and into Brazil .

The coffee grew well in Brazil , and by mid-19 th century, Brazil became the number one producer of coffee in the world, a title that the country still holds today.

The famous Boston Tea Party in 1774 made coffee the national drink of the United States of America . During the night of December 16, 1774, a group of American settlers threw 340 chests of tea into the Boston harbor as a protest tot eh British who slapped a high duty on tea imports. This event became known as the Boston Tea Part which led to the beginning of the American war on independence, after which the British no longer ruled in the northern part of the United Sta