[Sca-cooks] Questions on coffee

Tue Jan 26 22:00:26 PST 2010

Being half Swedish/Fin/Saami my blood is more coffee then blood. (Help! there is blood in my caffeine system!)
 It is documented that coffee was in Asia Minor by 1000 A.D. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coffee/ax/frame.html  It is also documented that the Varangian Guards (Viking Shock Troops) for the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire were also present in Asia minor. The deal or contract was that the Viking soldier served a term of 15-18 years as the personal guard to the Emperor. When time of service was done they were allowed to go home with whatever riches they had acquired. 18 years in country is more enough time to acquire a taste for the local beverages (coffee). Based on evidence of extensive trade between Birka, Hebdy, Gotland, et al. with Asia it is reasonable to assume that coffee would have followed the trade routes and traders. The Arabian did parch or boil the beans to prevent them from being grown outside of Arab control. It wasn't until the 1600 when coffee was grown outside of the Asia Minor or Africa.
While it is documented that coffee houses did not become popular until the 17th century, there are personal records/journals from the Swedish King and his ambassadors to Turkey  "having being compelled to drink a bitter concoction offered to him. He had looked at the black drink with apprehension, he said but learned to drink it without burning himself." (pg 125 Swedish Ways~ Lilly Lorenzen) In the same article it also talks about how Dr. Carl von Linne had prescribed coffee has a "remedy." He was the one who also discovered that he could take on an extra shift after drinking 3 cups. 
This is my justification for having coffee in a Viking encampment. 
Aelina the Saami

Duct Tape is like the Force: It has a light side & a dark side
and it holds the universe together.

________________________________
From: David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Tue, January 26, 2010 7:50:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Questions on coffee

I will continue to have my roasted bean coddle in the mornings at events
even if it is not period.
David

On 1/26/10 7:12 PM, "Stefan li Rous" <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:

> I made a comment on the Lochac list recently about coffee (and tea)
> not being period for Europe and this is one of the responses which
> came back.
> 
> I've asked for the references for the first three statements since
> they don't seem to match what Bear and others have said on this list.
> None of them apply to my statement on Europe, but in addition they
> don't seem to match with the comments about coffee originating in
> Ethiopia in the latter Middle Ages, either.  Are these statements
> items which were later disproved? Am I mis-remembering what was said
> about coffee here?
> 
> Thanks,
>     Stefan
> =========
> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:42:17 +1100
> From: "C Lenehan" <lenehan at our.net.au>
> Subject: [Lochac] coffee
> To: "The Shambles: the SCA Lochac mailing list"
> <lochac at lochac.sca.org>
> 
> For information on the vital subject of coffee
> 
> * Coffee seems to have been drunk in Persia since the ninth century.
> * It was first cultivated around 675 in Arabia.
> * Abu ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was acquainted with
> coffee
> around the year 1000.
> * 1475    The first coffee shop opens in Istanbul (Kiva Han).  It is
> still
> open.
> * The first European to mention coffee is Prospero Alpino of Padua.
> In 1580
> he went to Egypt, then under Ottoman rule.
> 
> Hrolf
> ==========
> 
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>     Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> 
> 
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