“What the heck’s up with them goats?” This saying is attributed to Kaldi of Ethiopia, aka “Krazy Kaldi”, circa 850 A.D.
Legend has it that Kaldi of Ethiopia, a goatherd, watched his flock go absolutely ape one day in 850 A.D. He tracked down the source of his goats’ weird behavior and learned they were snacking on some wild berries. Thus, coffee was discovered, as well as the first case of caffeine jangles. That’s how the legend goes at least, and although Kaldi may be pure legend, it’s a good place to start with the history of this forever nerve-zooming beverage.
“When you really get into coffee, there is a culture there almost like the one that surrounds wine,” says Bill O’Keefe, purveyor of Redding Roasters Coffee Company in Bethel. “Each varietal and roast has its own subtlety and nuance.”
How did the world get to jumpin’ for Java and jonesin’ for Joe? The legend continues with Kaldi experimenting and eating the berries himself. According to the story, he felt a lot happier afterwards. Then, a traveling imam came along and together he and Kaldi began experiments with the red berry. The imam is credited with the idea of grinding and boiling the seeds and suddenly flash! Bam! Alakazam! Wonderful “gahwa” came by!
The brew soon spread from Ethiopia to Yemen, where the wild plant was cultivated as Coffea Arabica. From there, it spread throughout the Arab world, where it was kept “a jealously guarded secret, although keeping the secret from outsiders was futile. A Moslem pilgrim named Baba Budan smuggled the beans into India, and in no time, the locals there were hooked too.
Sometime around 1600, the drink made its way into Europe via the port of Venice. Soon, coffee beans were flowing to Italy, chiefly coming from Yemen’s port city, Mocha, and from Java. The popularity spread so quickly that it even made it to the New World seven short years later, courtesy of Captain John Smith, founder of Jamestown, Virginia.
The first known coffee house opened in Constantinople in 1475. In 1652, the first Western coffee houses opened in London. They were called “penny universities” because coffee was a penny a cup and wherever there’s coffee there’s a lot of gab. Edward Lloyd opened his shop in London, and it’s still in business today as, that’s right, Lloyd’s of London, the insurance giant.
It was also in an English coffee house that the ubiquitous tip was born, thanks to signs placed by cups on the counters. They read “To Insure Prompt Service.” Other first coffee houses followed in Paris (1672), Vienna (1683), Berlin (1721) and Rome (1750). Coffee plants for cultivation were brought to the Americas in 1723 and gained a foothold in Central and South American agriculture. The plant was ideally suited to those regions because of their needs for high, mountain altitudes and rich volcanic soil.
To the north, import of coffee beans helped bolster ports like New Orleans. Drinking coffee also became a patriotic duty for Americans in 1775, thanks to a late night party held in Boston. In the mid-1950s, Americans institutionalized the drink with the invention of the “coffee break”. Yes, the coffee break was actually invented. A trade group created it as a PR promotion to prop up sagging sales.
In brewing technologies, the drip pot was invented in France around 1800 and the first espresso machine was created in 1822, also in France. Marize, a French tinsmith, also invented the Neapolitan flip-drip pot in 1819. The percolator was invented in, aw, who cares? If you still have one, throw it away. The first commercial espresso machine came along in Italy in 1905. The world saw its first drip coffee maker in 1908, the same year that Melitta Bentz invented a revolutionary paper filter for making coffee. Perhaps the biggest recent consumer technology breakthrough came with the introduction of Mr. Coffee in 1972; the inexpensive appliance was the first to introduce restaurant-style drip brewing for the home.

Beans to youse, and not the Boston-baked variety…
The coffee bean comes in two different strains: Arabica and robusto. Arabica is the good stuff and accounts for 75% of all beans grown around the world. It is rich in flavor but is a temperamental crop to grow. Robusto is the filler used to round out most commercial canned coffees, and though less flavorful than Arabica, robusto comes from a heartier, easier to grow plant. The varieties of these strains are named for regions or plantations from which they come. Hence, coffee buyers can chose from Arabica beans grown in Ethiopia, Kenya, Kona, Sumatra, Mocha/Yemen, Costa Rica and Guatemala to name a few. Each type has its own flavor and nuance.
The raw green beans are roasted with heated air to one of five levels. A medium level brown, also kown as the second level, is most often called American roast. The third and fourth levels are darker and called French, Italian or Viennese roasts. “For the record, espresso is not a roast or varietal, but a brewing method,” O’Keefe adds.
How can one tell the freshness of the bean? According to Rob Kaiser, co-owner of Mocha in Sandy Hook, take the sniff test. “The smell should be so intense it almost knocks you off your feet,” he says. “You should almost be able to taste it.”
How does one enjoy coffee? By doing what comes naturally. “Just do it from a ceramic mug, not a paper cup,” says Kaiser.
And don’t forget to kick back, slip yourself a slug from that wonderful jug, get snug as a bug and do the Java Jive.
 
Coming next month in Hat City Entertainment is Part Two of “Coffee 101”, in which local coffee gurus reveal the secrets of making extraordinary joe at home.