A daily cup, and the story of a shepherd boy

The notes begin with a drink that follows the writer through the day: a cup on waking, another on the way to work, another at a break, another on the way home. Instant mixes, iced americano, latte, and cappuccino sit together as familiar forms. A lecture video leaves them wanting the earlier history.

They tell the story of Kaldi, a shepherd boy on the Abyssinian highland in Ethiopia, who sees his sheep grow restless after eating red fruit, tastes it himself, feels a lift, and takes the fruit to a mosque. There, they write, coffee was used mainly in prayer, and also as wine or medicine; farmers boiled the wild fruit as porridge or as a remedy. The notes present this as a story they have been told, not as a settled official origin.

The Red Sea, Yemen, and a drink called kawa

Around the ninth century, they write, coffee was first cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula. Word of the red fruit crossed the Red Sea to Yemen, where coffee trees were first grown, and the mocha coffee people drink today takes its name from the port of Mocha. It was Yemenis, the notes say, who developed coffee from eating the fruit whole, or boiling it whole, into something closer to the form known now.

It later reached Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, where the fruit was boiled and the water drunk, or its juice fermented into an alcoholic drink called kawa. Until the thirteenth century only clergy could drink it; after that it spread to the wider public.

A guarded seed, a ban, and a first café in Istanbul

In that period coffee was under the strong protection of Islamic powers. Cultivation was confined to Arabia, and seed was strictly kept from leaving the region. The coffee popular in Mecca moved quickly to other Islamic cities, and, because it stimulated the nerves, drinking it was for a time forbidden. In the Ottoman period, the notes say, the first café appeared in Istanbul, under a name they record as “가누스 카프베,” as written. They do not carry the history past that café.

The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes, a student reading of coffee’s early path: the story of Kaldi on the Abyssinian highland, ninth-century cultivation in Arabia, Yemen and the port of Mocha, a drink called kawa, a temporary ban, and a first café in Ottoman Istanbul recorded as “가누스 카프베.”

Last updated: 15 November 2026