SC - Wine

[Decker, Terry D.]

>Bear quotes me:
>
>>>Coffee comes into the Islamic world in late period; does anyone know when
>>>tea makes its appearance, and when? With the Mongols? It doesn't get to
>>>Europe until quite late--17th c. for England.
>
>and responds
>
>>I'll quibble on the coffee.  While its expansion beyond the Arabian
>>Peninsula was limited primarily to the rich, it was known and in use as
>>early as the 9th Century.
>
>Evidence? The Hattox book concludes, after looking at a good deal of
>evidence and disputed claims, that it was native to Abyssinia, and didn't
>come into use in Arabia until the middle of the 15th c.
>
>
>
>
>David/Cariadoc
>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Not having read the Hattox book, I depend on Uker as my primary source
on coffee and his comments on coffeehouses, edicts for and against them,
and the riots over them.  The trade aspects are from some old notes
taken from a book on trade in the Islamic world, whose name escapes me
at present (which means I need to reread it and see if I've gotten more
knowledgeable).

The earliest date I have for the discovery of coffee is 750 CE.  Most
scholars place it at 850 CE.  If Avicenna was actually describing
coffee, one of these dates is probably correct.

The Ommayids moved the capitol of Islam to Damascus in mid-7th Century.
After the Abbasids seized control in 750 CE, they moved their capitol to
Baghdad, so that it was the capitol by the beginning to the 9th Century.
 The sole survivor of the Ommayids, creates the Caliphate of Cordoba by
the end of the 8th century.  This means that by the time coffee is
discovered, the seat of power is Baghdad and the Arabian peninsula is a
backwater.  Wealth and power moved out of Arabia, and I can easily see
Arabia coming to coffee late when the supply increased and its cost
diminished.

One of the major spice routes was up the Red Sea to Egypt then to other
Mediterranean ports, then inland to land locked cities.  Mocha is a port
on this route in southwest Yemen.  If I remember this correctly, Uker
places the use of coffee in Egypt and Damascus  in the 11th Century,
approximately conteporary with Avicenna.  An inference can be made, that
the sea ports closest to Ethiopia were harvesting coffee and sending it
up the trade route as a luxury good.  This trade route probably changed
at the beginning of the Crusades.

Turkish and Syrian utensiles from the 13th and 14th Centuries have been
identified as coffee grinders and coffee makers.  Barring error in the
identification of such utensiles, this suggests that coffee use was
spreading.  It also suggests that coffee was moving from harvested wild
coffee to cultivated coffee, increasing the available supply.  

A cultivated supply of coffee was certainly available by the 15th
Century.  When Constantinople fell in the mid-15th Century, coffee was
immediately available within the city and the coffeehouse which later
opened there made coffee a middle class luxury, rather than the
exclusive drink of the wealthy. 

These are a few of the points that cause me to hold the opinions I do.
As I have said, I have not read Hattox and of the many books on coffee I
have read, Uker is the only one I consider valuable enough to use in a
scholarly argument.  When I have the opportunity to consider Hattox's
arguments, I may change some of my opinions.  Until then, please pardon
my quibbles.

Bear 
 
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