THE HISTORY OF coffee began in Africa. It later crossed the Red Sea to Arabia, where things really got cooking…
Coffee, as we know it, kicked off in Arabia around 1000 CE. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking it in abundance. And wherever Islam went, coffee went too: North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and India.
THE BEANS WERE made infertile and no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 1600s. Tradition says that an Indian Muslim Haji (pilgrim) smuggled beans out of Makkah Mukarramah. This industry quickly reached Europe’s colonies.
The Dutch founded a European coffee estate on colonial Java, an island in Muslim Indonesia, in 1696. This invigorating drink then spread like wildfire and is now enjoyed the world over.
Coffee, as we know it, kicked off in Arabia around 1000 CE. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking it in abundance. And wherever Islam went, coffee went too: North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and India.
THE BEANS WERE made infertile and no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 1600s. Tradition says that an Indian Muslim Haji (pilgrim) smuggled beans out of Makkah Mukarramah. This industry quickly reached Europe’s colonies.
The Dutch founded a European coffee estate on colonial Java, an island in Muslim Indonesia, in 1696. This invigorating drink then spread like wildfire and is now enjoyed the world over.
