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Prior to 1000 AD: The first definite dates go back to 800 BC; many Arabian legends tell of a mysterious black and bitter beverage with powers of stimulation. About the year 1000 AD, coffee was being administered as a medicine. This is also about the same time as the story of the “dancing goats” belonging to Kaldi. Members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia notice that they get an energy boost when they eat a certain berry, ground up and mixed with animal fat.
1000 AD: Arab traders bring coffee back to their homeland to cultivate the plant for the first time on plantations. They also began to boil the beans, creating a wine-drink they call “qahwa” (literally, that which prevents sleep). It was made from coffee cherries, honey, and water. It fell out of favor with the spread of Islam and its sanctions against the consumption of alcohol.
1453: Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by Ottoman Turks. The world’s first coffee shop, Kiva Han, open there in 1475. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fail to provide her with her daily quota of coffee, which is considered an aphrodisiac.
1511: Khair Beg, the corrupt governor of Mecca, tries to ban coffee for fear that its influence might foster opposition to his rule. The sultan sends word that coffee is sacred and has the governor executed.
1529: The Turkish Army surrounds Vienna. Franz Georg Kolschitzky, a Viennese who had lived in Turkey, slips through the enemy lines to lead relief forces to the city. The fleeing Turks leave behind sacks of “dry black fodder” that Kolschitzky recognises as coffee. He claims it as his reward and opens central Europe’s first coffee house. He also establishes the habit of refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk.
1570: Coffee makes its appearance in Venice along with tobacco. The merit of its introduction into Italy is ascribed to the Paduan Prospero Alpino, a famous botanist and physician, who brought with him some sacks from the East and, having observed the plant’s characteristics, described it in his book “De Planctis Aegyptii et de Medicina Aegiptiorum”, printed between 1591 and 1592.
1600: Coffee, introduced to the West by Italian traders, grabs attention in high places. In Italy, Pope Clement VIII is urged by his advisers to consider that favorite drink of the Ottoman Empire part of the infidel threat. However, he decides to “baptize” it instead, making it an acceptable Christian beverage.
1607: Captain John Smith helps to found the colony of Virginia at Jamestown. It’s believed that he introduced coffee to North America.
1640: First coffeehouse opens in Italy. By 1763, Venice alone had over 218 coffee houses.
1652: First coffeehouse opens in England. Coffee houses multiply and become such popular forums for learned and not so learned - discussion that they are dubbed “penny universities” (a penny being the price of a cup of coffee). The London Stock Exchange grew from one of these London coffeehouses.
1668: Coffee replaces beer as New York’s City’s favorite breakfast drink. Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse opens in England and is frequented by merchants and maritime insurance agents. Eventually it becomes Lloyd’s of London, the best-known insurance company in the world.
1686: First coffeehouse opens in Paris. Le Procope is still in business today.
1690: With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon and in their East Indian colony - Java, source of the brew’s nickname.
1700: By 1700 there were nearly 2000 coffee houses in London. King Charles II banned coffee houses because they were regarded as hotbeds of revolution; the ban lasted 11 days.
1713: The Dutch unwittingly provide Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose descendants will produce entire Western coffee industry when in 1723 French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu steals a seedling and transports it to Martinique. Within 50 years and official survey records 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually, 90 percent of the world’s coffee spreads from this plant.
1721: First coffee house opens in Berlin.
1727: The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start when Lieutenant colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta is sent by government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only does he settle the dispute, but also strikes up a secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana’s governor. Although France guarded its New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said good-bye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee. The coffee plant was established in North Brazil, but the poor climatic conditions gradually shifted the crops, first to Rio de Janeiro and finally (1800-1850) to the States of San Paolo and Minas, where coffee found its ideal environment. Coffee growing began to develop here, until it became the most important economic resource of Brazil.
1732: Johann Sebastian Bach composes his Kaffee-Kantate. Partly an ode to coffee and partly a stab at the movement in Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee (it was thought to make them sterile), the cantata includes the aria, “Ah! How sweet coffee taste! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee.”
1773: Boston Tea Party, Americans revolt against King George’s Tea Tax and coffee is soon after proclaimed the national beverage.
1775: Prussia’s Frederick the Great tries to block imports of green coffee, as Prussia’s wealth is drained. Public outcry changes his mind.
1800’s: Espresso, a recent innovation in the way to prepare coffee, obtained its origin in 1822, with the innovation of the first crude espresso machine in France. The Italians perfected this wonderful machine and were the first to manufacture it. Espresso has become such an integral part of Italian life and culture, that there are presently over 200,000 espresso bars in Italy.
1886: Former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend “Maxwell House,” after the hotel in Nashville, TN where it’s served.
Early 1900’s: In Germany, afternoon coffee becomes a standard occasion. The derogatory term “KaffeeKlatsch” is coined to describe women’s gossip at these affairs. Since broadened to mean relaxed conversation in general.
1900: Hills Bros. begins packing roast coffee in vacuum tins, spelling the end of the ubiquitous local roasting shops and coffee mills.
1901: Luigi Bezzera patents first ‘restaurant’ espresso machine. The first soluble “instant” coffee is invented by Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago.
1903: German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turn a batch of ruined coffee beans over to researchers, who perfect the process of removing caffeine from the beans without destroying the flavor. He markets it under the brand name “Sanka.” Sanka is introduced to the United States in 1923.
1906: George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, notices a powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation, he creates the first mass-produced instant coffee (his brand is called Red E Coffee).
1920: Prohibition goes into effect in United States. Coffee sales boom.
1926: Coffee declared “beneficial” by the Science Newsletter.
1938: Having been asked by Brazil to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses, Nestle company invents freeze-dried coffee. Nestle develops Nescafe and introduces it in Switzerland.
1940: The US imports 70 percent of the world coffee crop.
1942: During W.W.II, American soldiers are issued instant Maxwell House coffee in their ration kits. Back home, widespread hoarding leads to coffee rationing.
1946: In Italy, Achilles Gaggia perfects first espresso machine to use higher pressure than steam , through spring powered lever system. Cappuccino is named for the resemblance of its color to the robes of the monks of the Capuchin order.
