The Origin of Coffee and its Theories

The origin of coffee and its discovery, even today, are extremely uncertain.

With little concrete evidence, this issue still generates many controversies among historians and botanists.

However, local legends are placed alongside science to bring us closer to the origin of coffee and to reveal the ancient relationship of this fruit among different folks and different cultures.

According to historians and botanists, we can tie the birthplace of coffee to the region of Kaffa and Enerea, referring to the ancient Ethiopian Empire.

“The natural habitat of coffee is not Arabia, as was once believed, but the area between Abyssinia and the great central African lakes, especially the southern Negus empire, in the mountainous provinces of Kaffa and Enerea”. - Dr. J. Padberg Drenkpol. (TAUNAY, 1939, p. 29).

"Its true homeland, however, says Roth, must be more to the West and South, there in the provinces of Kaffa and Enerea, where, as they told, coffee tree sprouts with natural exuberance in the woods, bending the branches with the weight of a fruit of the highest quality, buying a donkey's load for the twentieth part of a thaler. There, everyone drinks coffee and serves it to the outsider; in short, it is the center of its native distribution, its starting point for other stops”. - Major Harris on expedition to Ethiopia in 1844. (TAUNAY, 1939, p. 32).

In addition to the records that the coffee tree grew naturally in southwestern Ethiopia, in the region of Kaffa and Enerea, different local legends also support such claims.

Undoubtedly the most famous, is the legend of the Ethiopian goatherd, Kaldi, which was transmitted by the Oromos (natives of Ethiopia) and tells us the story of a goatherd, who through his goats, would have discovered coffee at the end of the 9th century.

Following, is the legend told by the Oromos:

“One day Kalid saw his goats behaving in an unusual manner, he observed his goats showing in abnormally energetic manner skipping, rearing on their hind legs and bleating loudly. He noticed they were eating the bright red berries on the green bushes near his pasture. He himself tried a few and soon felt a novel sense of delight”.

We know that, like a legend, the story can be told in innumerable ways. So was the legend of the Ethiopian goatherd, who earned the name Kaldi, in his French adaptation of the tale of Naironi.

A certain shepherd of camels or, as others say, of goats, according to the common tradition of the Orientals, complained to the monks of a monastery in the region of Ayamman, in Arabia Felix, that their flocks were awake more than once a week, and even as if they jumped all night, against what they used to. The prior of the monastery, taken by curiosity, thinking that this came from the pasture and carefully examining, together with a confrere, the place where the goats grazed, on the night when they were agitated, discovered some bushes, which fruits or, rather, berries, nourished themselves. He wanted to experience the virtues of this fruit himself and then, having boiled them in water and then ingested the potion, he experienced that it caused insomnia during the night. (NAIRONI, 1671. Text translated by Taunay, 1945, p. 68)

The story narrated by the Lebanese author, Fausto Naironi and present in his book “De saluberrima potione cahue, seu cafe nuncupata discursus”, published in 1671, is the first time that we witness the legend in written form.

As we can see, there is a series of divergences between the legend transmitted by the Oromos and that told by Naironi. However, this is how legends propagate, with countless versions and adaptations, after all, theories are speculative knowledge of a hypothetical disposition, so it is up to us to position them alongside attentive and profound knowledge, and to formulate our own conclusions.

The moment when coffee starts to be consumed as a drink, is still an uncertain question, however many local legends report a food crop, more specifically, among the Ethiopian nomads, also known as Oromos. They used to combine the coffee cherries with animal fat, such as an energy bar, which were consumed during their long journeys.

The use of coffee as food among the native people of Ethiopia, is recognized as one of the first forms of consumption of this fruit.

However, it was the drink from its infusion that became popular and quickly spread to neighboring countries, which didn’t take long to make this, the newest culture.

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Bibliographic references

DURESSA, E. L. Discourse Analysis of Origin and Distribution of Coffee Arabica. Etiópia: American Research Journal of History and Culture, 2018.

DURESSA, E. L. The Socio-Cultural Aspects of Coffee Production in Southwestern Ethiopia: An Overview. Etiópia: Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 2018.

NAIRONI, F. Discurso sobre a salubérrima bebida chamada Cahue ou Café. Roma, 1671.

SMITH, R. F. A history of coffee. In Clifford and Willson (eds.), Coffee: Botany, Chemistry and Production of Beans and Beverage. Inglaterra: Croom Helm Ltd, 1985.

TAUNAY, A. E. História do café no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Departamento Nacional do Café, 1939.

TEKETAY, D. History, botany and ecological requirements of coffee. Botsuana, 1999.