Where does coffee come from?

Although ubiquitous in France for several decades, its history is rather vague in the collective consciousness, and the image we have of it is mainly that conveyed by major brands through advertising with great use of superlatives. Here are some interesting points to remember.

Origin of Coffee - n.f

Official history has its gaps, legend has its charms. Around the 9th century, a young Ethiopian shepherd named Kaldi supposedly noticed that his goats, after grazing on the red berries of an unknown shrub on the high plateaus of Kaffa, refused to sleep at night and bounded with unusual energy. Intrigued, Kaldi himself tasted the berries and felt the same vivid, almost joyful effect. He reported his discovery to a monk from the nearby monastery. Skeptical, the monk threw the berries into the fire, and thus, it is said, the first aroma of roasted coffee was accidentally born. Fascinated by the scent escaping from the embers, the monks collected the beans, dissolved them in hot water, and discovered a drink that kept them awake during long night prayers. The legend of Kaldi is probably apocryphal, but it remains the mythological foundation of a beverage that, a few centuries later, would conquer the entire world.

There are many other legends throughout the ages about the discovery of coffee, but we now know from reliable sources that the wild coffee plant, called Coffea arabica, is an indigenous plant discovered around the year 850 in Ethiopia in the Kaffa region.

The Oromo tribes of Ethiopia chewed fresh berries mixed with animal fat for their stimulating effects during long marches. The fruit husks were also fermented to produce a slightly alcoholic beverage, qishr, still consumed in Yemen today. It was in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen, between the 13th and 15th centuries, that the infusion from roasted beans truly took shape. Monks found it a valuable aid to stay awake. The sacred drink was born.

Etymology of Coffee - n.f

The word deserves attention. It comes from the Arabic qahwah, a term that originally referred to... wine. With Islam prohibiting alcohol, the stimulating beverage derived from the coffee tree naturally inherited the term reserved for anything that gently alters one's state of mind. From the Arabic qahwah came the Turkish kahve, then the Italian caffè, the English coffee, and finally the French café, which eventually designated both the drink and the place where it is consumed. One word for two uses: an economy of vocabulary, just like the roaster.

From 1450, Mokha became the global coffee monopoly. The Ottoman Empire seized it as a tool for sociability and power: the first qahvehane, or coffee houses, opened in Constantinople around 1554. These places of conversation, games, and political debate worried the authorities. Coffee was repeatedly banned by sultans and imams, before being systematically re-authorized, due to the inability to contain an enthusiasm that transcended all borders.

This transit monopoly brought wealth to the city and shaped its culture. Egyptian coffee houses were not just places of consumption; they were spaces for debate, music, games, and politics, in the tradition of the Ottoman qahvehane that inspired them. Some Al-Azhar intellectuals seriously debated the permissibility of coffee in Islam before the drink became definitively established in customs.

This Cairene monopoly lasted until the 18th century. It only gave way with the massive arrival of cheaper coffee from Santo Domingo, produced in colonies, at a human cost that history has ultimately remembered. Cairo lost its position as the world's coffee capital as quickly as it had gained it.

Coffee thus arrived in Europe by sea, in the holds of Dutch VOC ships, around 1616. The Netherlands, already masters of the spice trade, were the first to understand the significance of this black drink from Yemen. Venice followed, then Marseille (1659), then Paris, timidly at first, with the coffee of the Armenian Pascal in 1672, more frankly with the opening of the Café de Procope in 1686, on Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, an establishment still in operation.

The Ottoman ambassador Soliman Aga presented the drink to the Sun King himself around 1670 and subsequently conquered the court of Versailles.

The reception was not uniformly positive everywhere. In England, women petitioned against coffee in 1674, complaining that the drink made their husbands "as barren as the deserts from which this cursed berry comes." Some clerics described it as "Satan's bitter invention." In Rome, Pope Clement VIII settled the matter pragmatically: after tasting it, he blessed it, declaring that it would be a shame to leave such a pleasant drink to the infidels. The Church aligned. Europe followed.

What happened next was quieter but more radical. In a few decades, coffee dethroned beer as the morning drink throughout Northern Europe, a sanitary as well as a cultural revolution, at a time when unboiled water regularly caused deaths.

English coffee houses, nicknamed penny universities because a penny entrance fee was enough to sit and converse with educated people, became the incubators of the Enlightenment. Lloyd's of London was born in a coffee house in 1688. Voltaire, it is said, drank forty cups a day. The French Revolution was prepared, among other places, in Parisian cafes. Coffee had not only crossed the Mediterranean. It had changed the way Europe thought.

This period also marks the entry point of coffee culture into European colonies. The Dutch exported it to Indonesia, the French to the West Indies and Reunion, and the Spanish to Colombia and Guatemala. The democratization of coffee became widespread in the 18th century. The plant is now cultivated in most subtropical areas of the world. The term "coffee belt" is commonly used to define the area around the equator where coffee cultivation is possible.

The Waves of Coffee - n.f

From the 20th century, Brazil quickly became the largest coffee producer in the world, accounting for 75% of global production in the 1910s. Production is now more fragmented, but Brazil still holds 1/3 of the volumes, nearly 2.7 million tons per year, followed by Vietnam (1.5 million tons) and Colombia (750,000 tons).

The world of coffee continued to develop throughout history: coffee species and varieties, cultivation methods, consumption patterns, etc.

In France, 3 waves of consumption have succeeded one another:

• In 1960-1970, coffee became democratized in all households, with brands like Grand' Mère, Carte Noire, or Nescafé, focused on the stimulating effect rather than taste, for filter or instant coffee consumption.
• The years 1990-2000 marked a turning point, with the theatricalization of consumption and the pursuit of a premiumization strategy. On one hand, the arrival of the American giant Starbucks launched the coffee shop movement; on the other hand, a revolution in at-home coffee consumption with the entry of Nespresso and its single-serve capsules. The brand offered a more valued product and gradually opened the door to different coffee flavors. Capsules now represent 60% of sales in France.
• The 3^rd wave, driven by a handful of players in the years 2010-2020, is that of specialty coffee. Like the wine or craft beer markets, consumers now want to know everything about coffee and are looking for better quality and a responsible product. This has led to the development of specialty coffee roasters, who readily highlight origins, varieties, and roasting types.

Celsius is part of this fundamental trend, which is rapidly evolving and constantly developing coffee's potential and improving its taste in the cup. We also regularly hear about a 4th wave, which would be one of responsibility and precision. At Celsius, and this is just our opinion, we believe that the 3rd wave is still expanding and maturing. We observe an audience eager for precision, wanting to control every parameter down to the mineralization or dynamization of water, and an industry gravitating around this. We also note the commitment of certain players in the sector, and a desire to integrate sustainability into the criteria of specialty coffee. Nevertheless, these behaviors are currently quite marginal and do not weigh enough in the balance for us to speak of a new wave, again, from our point of view.