Why does the history of coffee in Europe start with bans?

More than 1.3 billion people worldwide start the day with coffee, but the drink reached that point slowly. Early African tribes crushed coffee berries with animal fat into high-energy balls to chew, and from the 9th to 10th centuries AD people boiled the fruit into a liquid called bunchum used as medicine. On the Arabian Peninsula it later became the stimulating drink Gahwa.

When coffee arrived in Europe, it met religious and political resistance. Sweden prohibited the sale of cups and saucers along with it, and the Ottoman Empire imposed capital punishment on those who drank it publicly. Anecdotes from the same history include the precursor to instant coffee and Brazil sending athletes to compete using coffee beans, all part of a long shift from misunderstanding to wide adoption.

Over 1.3 billion people worldwide start their morning with a cup of coffee every day, but the history of coffee's spread is far from a straightforward tale. Initially, people did not treat it as a beverage; instead, they mixed coffee cherries with animal fat into energy balls to chew. In the Middle Ages, it was used as a medicinal herb, and later on the Arabian Peninsula, it evolved into the stimulating drink Gahwa. Upon entering Europe, coffee was once resisted and even banned for religious and political reasons—Sweden went so far as to prohibit the sale of cups and saucers along with it, and the Ottoman Empire imposed capital punishment on those who drank it publicly. Meanwhile, anecdotes abound, such as the precursor to instant coffee and Brazil sending athletes to compete using coffee beans. This article, through 15 trivia facts, traces coffee's long journey from being misunderstood to being adored, while retaining relevant recommendations from Front Street Coffee for coffee enthusiasts to reference and discuss.

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According to statistics, over 1.3 billion people worldwide make drinking coffee the first thing they do upon waking. However, in the distant past, human understanding of coffee was quite limited, and it was even classified alongside narcotics, believed to have hallucinogenic effects, and thus strictly prohibited. In certain periods, drinking coffee in public could result in the death penalty...

Let's now recount some of the absurd yet true episodes in the history of coffee's spread.

1. Coffee was originally eaten by chewing. Today, people are accustomed to sipping it, but coffee was not always a liquid beverage. Many historians believe that the earliest African tribes to encounter coffee would crush the coffee berries, mix them with animal fat, and roll them into edible high-energy balls to consume caffeine.

2. From the 9th to 10th centuries AD, people boiled coffee fruits into a liquid called "bunchum," said to relieve headaches. However, drinking it in excess could cause insomnia and mental confusion, so at the time, coffee was used only as medicine and long-term heavy consumption was not encouraged.

3. After 1450, residents of the Arabian Peninsula discovered that roasting the bean inside the coffee cherry darker and then boiling it together with the pulp produced an exceptionally good stimulating effect, and they named it Gahwa. Drinking too much Gahwa also caused mental confusion, so many believers in Arabian regions where alcohol was inconvenient to consume drank Gahwa as a substitute for alcohol, thereby briefly experiencing a sensation similar to alcohol numbing the nerves.

4. When coffee first widely appeared in Europe, many Christians refused to drink it, reasoning that this dark "elixir of immortality" was a beverage from the Muslim world. It was not until 1600, when Pope Clement VIII declared coffee a Christian beverage, that it truly gained a foothold in Europe.

5. In the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire believed coffee could cause hallucinations, and the monarch regarded it as a narcotic, banning its use in public. Those who violated the order could be sentenced to death...

6. In 17th-century Europe, spoons, cups, and plates were all rare items. After Zheng He's voyages to the West brought Chinese porcelain to Europe, locals began to imitate Chinese teapots, teacups, and tea bowls, creating vessels suitable for elegantly drinking coffee. However, drinking directly from the cup was too hot for the mouth, so nobles would first pour the coffee into the saucer before drinking, to maintain their poise.

7. In the 17th century, women believed coffee would turn men into "useless corpses." A women's anti-coffee petition in 1674 suggested banning coffee for those under 60, claiming that this beverage was turning English men into "useless corpses."

8. By the 18th century, some governments began attempting to ban coffee. The reasons for the bans were varied, one of which was that coffee could cause hallucinations, make people overly excited, and lead them to take radical actions. In 1746, Sweden not only banned coffee but also prohibited the sale and use of cups, saucers, and other coffee accessories.

9. In the mid-18th century, King Gustav III of Sweden studied the health effects of coffee. The experimental subjects were a pair of identical twins sentenced to death by the king's order: one would drink only coffee for the rest of his life, the other only tea, with the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The two doctors ordered to examine them and report directly to the king died mysteriously one after the other, mostly from natural causes; the king himself did not live to see the end of the experiment.

10. Although coffee was banned for a time, it could not stop people's "obsession" with it. England introduced "instant coffee" in 1771—different from the powdered instant coffee later invented in Japan, the method at the time was to concentrate coffee into blocks, which could be dissolved in hot water to make a cup of coffee.

11. Another 139 years passed before the first instant coffee was mass-produced and launched in the United States in 1910 (and patented at the same time), and the method of making instant coffee was thus introduced to China. Between 1917 and 1937, coffee houses flourished in Shanghai, selling not only coffee but also concentrated coffee blocks, coffee paste, coffee liquid, coffee syrup, etc., which could be mixed according to personal taste when consumed.

12. As the world's largest producer of coffee beans, Brazil, unable to afford the cost of participating in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, simply filled a ship with coffee and sold it along the way. In the end, it was thanks to these coffee beans that Brazilian athletes were sent to the Olympic arena...

13. In the United States, cider or beer was once the preferred breakfast beverage, and only later did coffee become popular, even among children. As research deepened, people discovered that caffeine in coffee, tea, and cola could affect children's development and mood. It was not until around 2010 that recommended caffeine intake levels for children appeared, and coffee is not advocated for children under 12.

14. Anything in excess can be harmful, and coffee is no exception. According to a video by AsapSCIENCE, a person weighing about 150 pounds would need to drink 70 cups of coffee for it to be potentially fatal. Many netizens joked after watching: Who would die from drinking 70 cups of coffee?

15. The claim that bulletproof coffee can help with weight loss has not been confirmed. The bulletproof coffee weight-loss method was proposed by Dave Asprey, and this coffee diet is based on Tibetan yak butter tea. Brewed with low-mold coffee beans, adding one to two tablespoons of medium-chain triglyceride oil and two tablespoons of unsalted butter, each cup contains about 450 calories. Asprey believes coffee can help people stay full longer and think more clearly, but his claims are not supported by any research.

Image source: Internet

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.