Coffee History

The history of coffee is said to go back at least a thousand years. Coffee history as we know it seems to begin in the middle of Ethiopia, where sheep herders were said to become hyperactive (and their sheep as well) as a result of eating certain beans. Around one thousand A.D. the beans from Ethiopia were brought into the middle east by Arab traders and the first coffee plantations in the history of coffee were established. Coffee origins history continued through the middle ages as coffee spread across the Ottoman Empire and through Italian traders coffee made its way into Western Europe in the 1700s.

There are other parts to coffee history that are equally as interesting. During the 1760s, the history of coffee cake began in Germany where coffee, which had just recently arrived in the area, was mixed in with sweetbreads. Coffee cake history thus began from the mid eighteenth century. The history of coffee shops in the West must have started about the same time, as Lloyd of London, the famous insurance trading center, began as a coffee house at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The history of Starbucks coffee company begins in the seventies when the chain was first founded in Seattle by people inspired by the Peets Coffee and Tea chain from California. In the eighties Starbucks was bought by a company run by a man who had seen the coffee house culture in Italy and wanted to replicate it in the United States (the founders of Starbucks would go on to leave Starbucks and buy Peets, though Starbucks has never bought Peets and the two companies are now considered competitors). Throughout the 1990's coffee boom history was made as Starbucks became the most famous and successful coffee house franchise in the entire world, with over ten thousand store locations world wide.

Many other questions exist that you can learn about if you are interested in more details of coffee history. For example, you could investigate butternut coffee history or the history of some other flavors of coffee. You could look for the origin of chocolate covered coffee beans or the origin or espresso drinks. Coffee history is long and winding but you can learn a lot about the rest of the history of the world by reading about coffee history. I hope you have enjoyed this quick look at coffee history!