[Sca-cooks] Questions on coffee

[Terry Decker]

Coffee grows wild from Abyssinia across central Africa to the West Coast of 
Africa.  Axum, which controlled much of Abyssinia and invaded Yemen in the 
6th Century, fell into decline in the 7th Century and was incorporated into 
Arabian Islam in the 8th Century.  There is some archeological evidence that 
Axum cultivated coffee some time after the 3rd Century (coffee is not 
mentioned in the Periplus of the Eritrean Sea).  Cultivation does not appear 
to have been exported from Abyssinia unbtil the 15th Century.

Bear

>I did. The National Geographic article isn't the first time I have heard 
>the story. I get the sense that coffee may have grown wild before being 
>officially cultivated around 1000 A.D.
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>  It is documented that coffee was in Asia Minor by 1000 A.D.
>>http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coffee/ax/frame.html
>
>>>>>>>>>
>
> Did anyone else find this a little amusing. :)
> "Goats will eat anything. Just ask Kaldi the legendary Ethiopian goatherd.
> Kaldi, the story goes, noticed his herd dancing from one coffee shrub to
> another, grazing on the cherry-red berries containing the beans. He copped 
> a
> few himself and was soon frolicking with his flock."
>
> Another history of coffee site.
> http://www.turkishcoffeeworld.com/History_of_Coffee_s/60.htm
>
> De