When coffee replaced beer and wine as a morning beverage
Beautiful Botanicals by Joanne Howdle
Coffee traces its origins to the Coffea genus of plants. Experts estimate that there are anywhere from 25 to 100 species of coffee plants which can grow to more than 9 meters high.
Each plant is covered with green, waxy leaves growing opposite each other in pairs. The fruit of the botanical is known as a coffee berry or cherry. Coffee beans are housed inside the fruit and are technically classified as seeds.
According to legend, coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goat-herder called Kaldi. He noticed that goats who ate the berries from a certain tree became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night.
Kaldi reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink with the coffee beans contained within the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayers. The abbot shared his discovery with other people, and knowledge of the energising drink began to spread.
As word moved east and coffee reached the Arabian Peninsula, it began a journey which would take the botanical around the globe.

By the 17th century, coffee had arrived in Europe and was becoming popular across the continent as a morning beverage replacing beer and wine. People reacted to this new beverage with suspicion or fear, calling it the “bitter invention of Satan”.
The controversy was so great that Pope Clement VIII (1536-1605), was asked to intervene. He found the drink so satisfying that he gave it papal approval.
The first coffee-house in London opened in 1652 and by the end of the 17th century, there were hundreds of them. The coffee-house was viewed as a place where artists, scientists and politicians gathered for enlightened debate and discussion.
Famous businesses including Lloyd’s of London, the Marine Insurer, were developed at coffee-houses. Records of the Burgh of Glasgow dated October 11, 1673, state that a shrewd businessperson by the name of Colonel Walter Whiteford was granted a licence to sell coffee in Glasgow for 19 years, along with monopoly rights regarding the sale of coffee at coffee-houses within the city for the same amount of time.
The Port of Glasgow received its first cargo of coffee beans belonging to Whiteford in 1674. Whiteford imported his coffee beans from the Island of Java in Indonesia.
Coffee was introduced into Indonesia in the late 1660s by the Dutch and not long after came under the control of the Dutch East India Company. Coffee beans from Java were used as ballast on sailing ships plying the spice trade around the islands of Indonesia.
As the spice ships carried their cargo back to Europe, the raw beans were tempered by the oak of the hulls of the ships and the brine of the sea giving the coffee beans a distinctive deep brown colour. This colour, along with their point of origin, resulted in the beans being christened Old Brown Java.
The unique environment in which the beans were transported meant the resulting coffee was oaky like the ships timbers, briny like the sea with a heavily bodied character, and an exceptionally robust and gutsy flavour.
Coffee has a special place in traditional herbal medicine where it is used to relieve pain, treat asthma, chronic diarrhoea, fever, irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) and malaria. The botanical is also used to stimulate bowel movements, and relieve constipation, combat fatigue, and improve levels of stamina and the ability to concentrate.
In the production of gin, vodka and rum, Old Brown Java coffee beans are used to add an oaky and smoky depth of flavour to the spirits.
• Joanne Howdle is interpretation and engagement manager at the multi-award winning Dunnet Bay Distillers Ltd.