COFFEA 



ARABICA 



History 



Coffee- 

 drinking 



Pulp of the 

 Cherry. 



Boasted Seeds. 



European 

 Knowledge. 



First Botanical 

 Description. 



Early Coffee 

 Trade. 



Coffee- 

 drinking. 



THE COFFEE PLANT 



to Mecca, Medina and Cairo, and finally within the century after its introduction 

 to Aden, it had been conveyed to Damascus, Aleppo and Constantinople. But 

 in due course the more strict in the tenets of their faith objected to public coffee- 

 houses and to the gaming, singing and dancing that there took place. At various 

 times the effort was accordingly made to repress the traffic and to close the 

 coffee-houses. In 1511 the Governor of Mecca (the Viceroy of the Sultan of 

 Egypt) issued a " Condemnation " of coffee as the united opinion of the priests, 

 doctors and learned men of that town, on the ground that it was a form of wine 

 (kahwah) and therefore contrary to the law. It is thus just possible that the 

 beverage then in use was prepared from the pulp of the fruit and was, therefore, 

 actually intoxicating. But the Sultan revoked the condemnation and reproved 

 his viceroy for venturing to prohibit an article of daily food used by the people 

 of the capital of the Empire (Cairo) and by the Sultan himself. Later on (1524), 

 however, the coffee-houses of Mecca had become the scenes of so much rioting 

 that they were closed, by order of the Kadi. In 1533 the people of Cairo were 

 divided into two classes, those who considered coffee lawful, and those who did 

 not. In 1554 the coffee-houses of Constantinople were closed on a new pretext, 

 that possibly marks the more complete establishment of the habit of roasting 

 the seeds. The charred berries (seeds) were considered as charcoal, and thus 

 unlawful as articles of food. 



Difference of opinion exists regarding the first European who saw and de- 

 scribed both the plant and the beverage. Ramusio published in 1554 his Raccolta 

 delle Navigations e Viaggi, and one of the travellers whom he quotes describes a 

 journey from Aden to Rhada which he made as a prisoner. Incidentally he 

 mentions coffee among the plants observed by him, but speaks of it as if he and 

 all his readers were perfectly familiar with the plant so named. We know that 

 by that time it was being used in Constantinople, so apparently it was known 

 some time prior to the actual date of its being chronicled. De la Roque, while 

 characterising the traffic in coffee as quite modern, points out that Peter Belon, 

 who travelled in Egypt and Arabia in 1546-9 and described most of the curious 

 and interesting plants seen by him, makes no sort of allusion to coffee. But about 

 the same time, or shortly after, several other travellers visited both Arabia and 

 Abyssinia, and some mention while others are silent regarding coffee. Similarly 

 John Ray published in 1693 a collection of Voyages and Travels. A few of the 

 authors whose works he gives, deal with Ethiopia and Arabia, and some mention 

 coffee while others do not. Clusius (Arom. Hist. (Garcia de Orta), 1574, 214-5) 

 received from Dr. Alphonse Pancius of Ferrara, during the summer of 1573, a 

 few coffee-berries (seeds). These he figured and described, and tells us that they 

 were called buna and by some elkaue (al leave) and that in Alexandria a drink 

 was made from them. Rauwolf visited Aleppo in November 1573 and saw 

 the coffee plant, as also the beverage. He published his account in 1583 

 (Beschreit. der Raiss., 103). Thus Clusius, not Rauwolf, as is commonly affirmed, 

 should be viewed as the first botanist who examined and described the coffee- 

 berries. Prosper Alpinus, as already stated, had a few years still later given 

 a full account both of the plant and of the beverage, and his statements were 

 published time after time for a century subsquently, without any new information 

 of value being made known. 



Very few of the early rulers, travellers or botanists of India mention 

 coffee, such as Marco Polo (1290), the Memoirs of the Emperor Baber 

 (1519), the Ain-i-Akbari (1590), Rheede (1678), and Rumphius (1750). Lin- 

 schoten (1598) described the preparation of tea in Japan, and his contemporary 

 and publisher Paludanus, in a footnote commenting on that passage, observes 

 that in the same way the Turks prepare a beverage from " the fruit which is like 

 unto the bakelaoe (laurel berry) and by the Egyptians is called bon or ban." 

 Pyrard (Voy. E. Ind., 1610 (ed. Hakl. Soc.), i., 172) speaks of the king and great 

 lords of the Maldives drinking coffee. Tavernier (Travels Ind., 1676, ii., 23-4) says 

 that in his time coffee did not grow either in India or Persia, but that the supplies 

 came from Arabia. He then adds that the principal coffee trade was from Hormuz 

 and Bassora, " where the Dutch when returning empty from Mocha, load up as 

 much as they can with that seed, it being an article which they sell well." From 

 Hormuz it is exported to Persia, and from Bassora to Mesopotamia and other 

 Turkish provinces. (For accounts by Bontius, Mandelslo and Ovington, see 

 Camellia, p. 212.) 



Down to the year 1690 the world's supply of coffee came from Arabia and 

 Abyssinia. The following historic data may be accepted therefore as fittingly con- 



366 



