[Sca-cooks] Questions on coffee

[David Friedman]

>...



>* Coffee seems to have been drunk in Persia since the ninth century.

To the best of my knowledge that is not true.

>* It was first cultivated around 675 in Arabia.

Ditto.

>* Abu ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was acquainted with coffee
>around the year 1000.

I think there is some evidence for references to coffee in the 
medicinal literature well before it was being used as a drink outside 
of Abyssinia. This might be one of them.

>* 1475    The first coffee shop opens in Istanbul (Kiva Han).  It is still
>open.

Might be correct.

>* The first European to mention coffee is Prospero Alpino of Padua.  
>In 1580
>he went to Egypt, then under Ottoman rule.

Might be correct.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com