[Sca-cooks] Beverage experiments

[Terry Decker]

> Coffee, however, is sacred.
> >
> Gunthar

Why yes it is.  But that doesn't make its use historically accurate.

There is an apochryphal tale that Shayhk Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili introduced 
coffee into Yemen around 1258.  He is a somewhat shadowy but real figure who 
is sometimes referred to as the patron saint of Mocha.  He was also a Sufi.

The Sufis, who experimented with altered states as a path to enlightenment, 
used coffee as a sacrement in their rituals to help them stay alert for 
extend periods.  The appearance of coffee roasting pans in Turkey and Persia 
in the first half of the 15th Century where Sufi activity was greatest 
suggests that they may have been using coffee a little earlier than its 
general spread, but by no more than 50 to 150 years.  Ergo, coffee is 
sacred, for the Mass, so to speak, but not the masses.

It's more plebian use as a general beverage had to wait for Shayhk Jamal 
al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Sa'id al-Dhabbani.

Bear