The early history of coffee is obscure. It has been in use for over a thousand years. The knowledge of its use was first brought into Arabia from Abyssinia in the fifteenth century. “Its peculiar property of dissipating drowsiness and preventing sleep was taken advantage of in connection with the prolonged religious services of the Mohametans, and its use as a devotional antisoporific stirred up a fierce opposition on the part of the priests. Coffee was by them held to be an intoxicant beverage, and therefore prohibited by the Koran;[17] and the dreadful penalties of an outraged sacred law were laid over the heads of all who became addicted to its use. Notwithstanding the threats of divine retribution, and though all manner of devices were adopted to check its growth, the coffee-drinking habit spread rapidly among the Arabians, Mohametans, and the growth of coffee as well as its use as a national beverage became as inseparably associated with Arabia as tea is with China.” Coffee reached Great Britain in the seventeenth century. Charles II. attempted to suppress coffee houses by proclamation, because they “devised and spread abroad divers false, malicious and scandalous reports to the defamation of his Majesty’s government and to the peace and quiet of the nation.” How different is this view from that held by those interested in good government, peace and prosperity at the present day! We now rejoice in the establishment of coffee houses, hoping that they may supplant the much dreaded rum shops.
It is worthy of note here that the three dietetic beverages treated in this article were all introduced into Europe at nearly the same time. Tea came through the Dutch; cocoa was brought from South America to Spain, and coffee came from Arabia by the way of Constantinople.
Coffee was for some time supplied only by Arabia, but near the beginning of the eighteenth century its culture was introduced into Java and the West India islands. At the present day its culture is general within the tropics, Brazil leading the list in amount annually produced. In the Eastern hemisphere the principal coffee regions are Java and Ceylon, where a superior article is produced. The amount of coffee imported into the United States during the year ending June 30th, 1884, was 534,785,542 pounds, and 18,907,627 pounds in excess of the previous year. It is seen that these figures give nearly ten pounds for each individual in this vast country. This amount per capita is exceeded by only a few countries. Holland leads all European states, with an average of twenty-one pounds per head, followed closely by Belgium, Denmark and Norway.