Qahwa and Mocha
— Koen • August 6th, 2007
The legend that qahwa (coffee) was discovered by an Abyssinian goatherd has been told for ages, and even retold in The Thousand and One Nights. But the legend does not mention the date of the great discovery. What is part of the history is that Muslim dervishes used to consume qahwa to help them fulfill their night-time prayers. On their annual pilgrimage to Makkah, they introduced qahwa to their fellow pilgrims throughout the Islamic world. Ibnu Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037) had investigated the benefits of qahwa and promoted its consumption. Al-Razi, a 9th century Arab physician, had also described some of the properties of qahwa. By the mid-15th century coffee was established in both Persia and Arabia, and started to spread to the Europe.
Moka, or Mocha, is a small city founded by a sufi. Its port then grew rich trading in spices. By the mid-16th century it had grown into a thriving city that welcomed ships bound for destinations such as Istanbul, Qahira (Cairo), Halif (Aleppo), and Dimasq (Damascus). When the coffee tree was introduced to the high plains of Mocha’s hinterland, the green beans were transported to the coast on the backs of camels, and Mocha became the world’s foremost supplier of coffee, or, as they called it in the Europe: the mocha drink.
Abyssinia and Yemen were then the only coffee producing countries. It remained so until the mid-17th century.
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