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According to legend, there once lived an Arabian goat herder named Kaldi who tended his herd in the Southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. One day Kaldi found his goats dancing joyously around a dark green-leafed shrub with bright red cherries. Kaldi soon determined that it was the bright red cherries on the shrub that were causing the peculiar euphoric behavior in his goats. After trying the cherries for himself, he too came to appreciate the powerful effect of these little round jewels.
After learning of the stimulating effects that the cherries possessed, the little
round cherries were used by monks at a local monastery to stay awake during extended hours of prayer. Soon their find
had been distributed to other monasteries around the world. Coffee was thus born.
Contrary to popular legend and lore, recent botanical evidence indicates that Coffea Arabica originated on the plateaus of Central Ethiopia and migrated to Yemen through the usual trade routes. Today in Yemen local farmers continue to cultivate the plants which arrived in the 6th century. Soon afterward the first coffee houses began to appear in Cairo and Mecca. Quickly, coffee's basis for consumption underwent a shift from being mere stimulant to that of an experience based in flavor satisfaction and social interaction.
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