73
TO THE EDITOR OF THE REPOSITORY, &c.
Observing in your first number an account of the method of making coffee in Germany, and sensible that the use of it in this countrv has surprisingly increased since the reduction of duty took place, I am induced to send you some account of the history of that article; from which it will appear, that in the course of less than four centuries a berry has made its way almost through the whole civilized world, which was before known only as an article of luxury, or food to a few savage tribes on the borders of Abyssinia. The Greeks and the Romans were entirely unacquainted with coffee. It is not mentioned in any of the European writers who were engaged in the crusades, from which (although it is said to have been found both in a wild and cultivated state in Syria from time immemorial) it is evident that it could not have been used during the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, either in medicine or domestic economy. That the qualities of it were known in Africa, is contended for by the Abbé Raynal and Bruce; the latter of whom tells us, that the Gallæ, a wandering nation of Africa, being obliged to traverse immense deserts in their incursions on Abyssinia, carry no provision but coffee roasted till it can be pulverized, and then mixed with butter to a consistency that will sutler it to be rolled up in balls, one of which, about the size of a billiard-ball, is said to be sufficient to keep them in health and spirits during a whole day’s fatigue, better than a loaf of bread or a piece of meat.
The use of coffee appears originally to have been introduced by the prior of an Arabian monastery, who being informed of its effects on the goats that browsed the young trees, gave an infusion of the berries to his monks, in order to prevent an inclination for steep, which interfered with their nocturnal devotions. The author of an Arabian manuscript now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, ascribes the introduction of this beverage into Arabia to Megaleddin, mufti of Aden, about the middle of the fifteenth century. From Aden, this new luxury rapidly extended itself to Mecca, Medina, and Grand Cairo, and was received with equal avidity even at Constantinople; but here it had to encounter political as well as religious obstacles, and coffee-houses were prohibited: but the enthusiasm of religion gave way to the seductive influence of sensitive enjoyment; and if political sagacity had not discovered the possibility of coffee-houses becoming the nurseries of sedition and the rendezvous of the disaffected, they would not have been again suppressed from motives of religious consideration.
The were at length suffered to exist rather as objects of jealousy than encouragement, notwithstanding the great revenue which they yielded. Making coffee for the public is now considered of so much importance, that it is under the inspection of seven principal officers, who have each of No. II. Vol. I. L
