SC - coffe and tea at events

[Decker, Terry D.]

>At 1:00 PM -0600 1/24/98, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
>
>>If Uker's chronology is correct, a 15th Century Turk might have coffee
>>available, especially if they were wealthy.  This is primarily based on
>>the types of ewers and the coffee roasting plates which became available
>>in Persia, Egypt and Turkey between 1350 and 1500.  I keep hoping to
>>come across a study of a chemical or neutron bombardment analysis of the
>>interior of some of these artifacts (especially the earlier pottery
>>ewers) to determine if they were actually used for coffee.
>>
>>In Uker, general coffee drinking starts about 1454 with Sheik
>>Gemaleddin, the Mufti of Aden, sanctioning the use of coffee in Arabia
>>Felix.  Coffee use spreads north.  Coffee is prohibited in Cairo in
>>1511.  Coffee reaches Constantinople with Selin I in 1517.
>
>It sounds as though is chronology and Hattox's are about the same. So a
>fifteenth century Turk would not regard coffee as a familiar drink to be
>routinely served to guests--which was the position Ras was offering. I
>think we agree that he could conceivably have tasted it on his travels, if
>they happened to take him in the direction of Yemen.

Point taken.

>>>From the sources I have available, and I do not have Hattox, my opinion
>>is that coffee has been available in the Islamic world since about 900
>>CE (Rhaze's description of bunchum).  It was probably a medicinal until
>>about 1250 (apocryphally, Sheik Omar, disciple of Sheik Schadheli,
>>patron saint and legendary founder of Mocha, discovers the beverage
>>coffee at Ousab, Arabia), when it became a luxury trade good for the
>>very rich.  This would explain the existence of coffee making artifacts
>>and the lack of coffee houses.  Cultivation of coffee expanding to meet
>>the demand creates a surplus which lowers the price of coffee and brings
>>it to the masses around 1450.
>
>I think the problem with that account is that coffee is being treated as a
>novelty in the fifteenth century, if I remember Hattox correctly--among
>other things, the question of whether it counts as an intoxicant and should
>be banned surfaces then. That might happen if it had been known only as a
>medicine before, but doesn't sound plausible if it had been a luxury trade
>good for the previous two centuries. Absent your hypothetical future tests,
>I find "coffe making arifacts" pretty weak evidence--how do they differ
>from similar artifacts used for other purposes?
>
>David/Cariadoc
>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Some of the artifacts in question are coffee roasting plates (flat,
slightly rounded plates with small holes drilled in them to help heat
the beans).  They aren't much good for anything else.  As for the tests,
I may need to write the Sackler and inquire if any such tests have been
made.

Coffee becomes a "popular" novelty at the end of the 15th Century.  Uker
places the general use of coffee as starting in 1470.  Depending on the
dates used, it took 25 to 75 years to spread across the Islamic world.
Sugar cultivation took about 50 years to spread and it had been
cultivated for centuries before the Arabs found it.  The speed with
which coffee spread and the level of income that it reached suggests
that coffee had been under increasing cultivation for quite some time.  

As for the 200 year luxury trade, if you were starting from wild plants
trying to create a cultivated base for a small but growing luxury trade,
200 years might be a bagatelle.

If coffee was not in use and under cultivation before it became popular,
where did the coffee beans come from to meet the demand?  If coffee was
under cultivation, what was the market for coffee before it became
popular?  They are questions worth answering, but the answers may be
beyond my limited skills.

Bear 
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