the relationship with coffee.
The delicious, comforting and some times life saving brown black hot, and some times ice cold liquid.
mmmmmm....
The first thing I do in the morning is to fire up the coffee maker and I think it's one of the last things I do before I go to bed, and I don't think there's any need to say that my trusted coffee maker is working hard also during the day through.
But what is it really all about?
I remember the first time I tasted coffee and I thought that it tasted like poison, but I was only like 6 or 7 years old.
The day I found out that I really enjoyed drinking coffee I was 13 , and I remember it was one of the most fantastic things in the world. I don't think i have to mention that I was pretty excited and way up in the sky some where that particular day.
But anyway; back to what's really about.
I have actually never put so much thought into the history of coffee; you see; I am from Norway, and I actually don't know anything of how it got there in the first place?
For me it's just something that's always been there.
So, I did some research and this is what I came up with
Coffee beans are seeds of the coffee bush, normally between two and three meters high. There are actually observed in the entire coffee bushes 8 m. and that it pretty amazing I must say!
On these bushes grow out white flowers that smell like jasmine. The flowers later becomes to small, green berries, and are ready to be harvested when they turn yellow or red. Usually the coffee bush begins to bear fruit after three or four years.
After 25 years the harvest progressively becomes smaller, but there are trees that are more than 100 years old and are still full on fruit bearers.
The berries are harvested by hand once or twice a year.
After the fruit is picked and the pulp washed away with running water.
The seeds are separated from the shell by being crushed between rotating cylinders of wood.
Raw coffee has almost no smell and taste. The coffee is burned by heating up close to 200 degrees, the color is chocolate brown. It is only when the coffee is roasted it gets its distinctive flavor. It takes approx. 5000 berries to make 1 kg roasted and ground coffee - Wow!
I totally did not know that!
Coffee plant have also been known among African tribes since prehistoric times.
The tribes crushed coffee beans and mixed them with fat. This was the food they ate when they where gone hunting
There is also a legend here too , and the legends tell of an Ethiopian shepherd named Kaldi in the year 500 something, made an important discovery.
When his goats ate leaves and fruits from a particular tree they become so very excited that they could not sleep. Kaldi tried both soothing herbs and spiritual prayers but nothing helped.
I can imagine how Kaldi felt when his cows went crazy.
Anyway..
Kaldi then looked for help from the very wisest men, the monks. The monks made a mixture that they tested out and the result was very refreshing.
The monastery became known under the name "The awake monastery". Now they could pray all day and night long without falling asleep.Good for them!
So the very first commercial coffee house opened in 1470 in Mecca.
later it appeared coffeehouses in Cairo, Baghdad, Aden and Medina
The first coffee house in Constantinople was opened in 1550, where they called it the educated school.Here, only men had access like that was a big surprise.
Anyway..
Kaldi then looked for help from the very wisest men, the monks. The monks made a mixture that they tested out and the result was very refreshing.
The monastery became known under the name "The awake monastery". Now they could pray all day and night long without falling asleep.Good for them!
So the very first commercial coffee house opened in 1470 in Mecca.
later it appeared coffeehouses in Cairo, Baghdad, Aden and Medina
The first coffee house in Constantinople was opened in 1550, where they called it the educated school.Here, only men had access like that was a big surprise.
It can not be dated exactly when the coffee came to Europe unfortantly. Some believe it was the Roman Pietro della Valle as when he was in 1615 in Constantinople and drank coffee, decided that this drink would be made known in Italy. Coffee quickly became popular, but seen as the devil's drink. A local priest wanted to ban coffee. The dispute ended with Pope Clement the 8. who decided to taste the coffee before he rendered his verdict. The pope made the following statement. "This Satan's drink is so good that it would be a pity if only the wicked would be enjoying it. We shall fool Satan and baptize it, so it becomes a true Christian drink, safe for the soul". The coffee is now the only beverage with the Pope's approval.And this stuff is real, I did not make this up i promise!
The first serious coffee house opened in Venice in 1647. In the next 60 years it grew to over 200 in Venice.
Louis 14 got a coffee plant as a gift from the Mayor of Amsterdam and planted it in Paris. Nine years later, a young naval officer, Gabriel de Clieu, awarded some seeds which he took to Marinique. These seeds become rapidly to 18 million coffee trees on the island, and was master trees to coffee trees on the Caribbean islands, in South and Central America. Today, Brazil produces the most coffee in the world. And all that from just a hand full of seeds from Paris.
The coffee came to Norway in 1675. Coffee consumption jumped in 1842, thanks to the ban on burning moon shine at home, and the coffee became a drink you drank at home even burning moon shine still happens, it gave birth to a traditional Norwegian drink called "Karsk". 50 % coffee and 50% moon shine - taste like poison for real!
Scandinavians make up 3 per thousand of the world's population, but drink 5.5 percent of all coffee in the world. Only in Norway Norwegians buy coffee for over $ 2.5 billion a year. Norway and Finland still fighting for the top spot for the consumption rates.Norwegian consumes approx. 9.3 kg of coffee per year, equivalent to three cups a day. This is twice as much as the average European!
Maybe that's how we survive the winters up there
