Coffee. An everyday product that is essential for life to most, has a very rich and long tradition that most do not usually think about. The history begins in Ethiopia in the 11th century, where the first form of coffee was discovered by a goat herder, cultivated and made for uses that were meant to be medicinal. After Ethiopia, the drink began to spread throughout the rest of the world, eventually gaining lots of popularity in Europe and the Middle East. The Middle East is responsible for creating the modern day roast of coffee that we know today. Coffee than became very important to Muslim culture because of the energy boost from the caffeine within coffee that helped them get through long days of work and prayer.
Coffee had its go amongst all of the countries within the Eastern Hemisphere, but it became extremely popular in the Americas around the year 1600. All of the major colonial powers like Great Britain, France, and Spain began to grow coffee in the Caribbean, and began to trade the commodity around the world. The popularity of coffee began to really grow in Europe when supplements to coffee like biscuits in Great Britain, and croissants in France were discovered as being a delicious pair. Although coffee was getting bigger in Europe, coffee became huge in the American Colonies around the late 1700’s.
The American coffee heritage is incredibly important to understanding the drink in general considering Americans consume the most coffee out of any other country in the world. In the year 1773, the American colonies were on the verge of starting a war with their mother country Great Britain, and declaring themselves a sovereign nation. It was during this time that Americans began to try to prove themselves to be different from the nation that they were trying to get away from, so they felt that the best way to show this was through cultural differences. In 1773, the iconic Boston Tea occurred where the Americans stormed British ships, took boxes of tea, and threw the boxes into the Boston Harbor as a sign of rebellion. After this, the Americans refused to drink tea, and made coffee their beverage of choice.
American coffee has become a huge industry throughout the years that it has become the preferred drink. Coffee has turned into a habit that most enjoy, and has become one of those products that is essential to most peoples lives. That being said, because coffee has become such a big part culturally to being an American, companies like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts have found a way to enhance the coffee experience by almost remixing the traditional coffee drink, and putting their own spins on them by adding flavors and changing up the styles, and has in turn gone further to increase the drinks popularity.
Leave a Reply