More Coffee: Devil's Tool, or Gateway to Heaven?
I wrote a little bit ago that I always looked forward to the "free" coffee at sunday church. Turns out there's a lot more history behind the mixing of coffee and church.
Apparently, coffee first comes on the historical scene sometime in the 9th century, popular first among Islamic monks and later through the entire Arab world due to its energizing effects.
In time, coffee began to spread throughout Europe as well; but because it had come from the Muslim world, priests pronounced it to be the drink of "infidels". In the late 1500s, Pope Clement VIII was urged by his trusted advisers to ban the drink throughout the church's domain as "the drink of the devil" because of its roots. Instead, as legend has it, he insisted on trying it.
He loved it so much that he said something to the effect of "This drink of Satan is so tasty that it shouldn't be his or the infidels alone; we'll make it our own by baptizing it and thereby fool Satan".
Within 50 years of this "baptism", coffee shops proliferated Europe. And eventually, Starbucks came into power in the US and returned coffee to the realm of the devil...just kidding (I love Starbucks).
More fun facts about coffee HERE.
1 comments:
I'm finally here to post a comment! I loved your post when I read it after you were here. Great shout out to the immaculate drink. You got most of your history right. The area of Arabia was known as "Moka" and beans also came from the island of Java in the East Indies. Thus two names that became associated. The original legend though is that goat herders in Ethiopia ate the berries and even gave them to the animals, causing unusual sensations and behavior. Imagine that -- jazzed sheep. Crazy!
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