Coffee Legends ~ Fact Or Myth? You Decide?

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil. It is the most significant part of the economy in many of the world's poorest countries.

Kaldi And His Dancing Goats
It is told an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi was napping on the job and awoke to discover his goats had roamed to a distant hillside dancing around a wild coffee tree. He hurried his way to them and saw that they were eating the red berries from the tree. Curious about the dazzling energy of his usually lackadaisical goats, Kaldi decided to try the berries, also.

Kaldi, too, experienced the burst of energy and an euphoric high. The coffee berries became a daily ritual for Kaldi and his dancing goats. Along came a local monk and questioned the goat herder about their appearance of dancing, Kaldi showed him the red berry coffee tree. The monk, amazed, experimented with different ways of preparing the berries and began to serve a tea made from steeping them to his monastery. Hence, the begining of coffee and, ummm, dancing goats.

Whether or not Kaldi discovered the wonders of the coffee tree, we do know that the earliest records of natural organic coffee consumption are from monasteries in the homeland of Ethiopia. From there it spread throughout the Ottoman Empire. First coveted for it's medicinal properties, it was the social effects of coffee that made it an integral part of Arab life and by the mid sixteenth century the world's first coffeehouses were opening in Constantinople, Cairo and Mecca.

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