Coffee History - Homer

If yesterday I post about history of coffee from Middle-East , today it's different ... now The History of Coffee from Greek views..

The discovery of coffee is shrouded in the myths and legends of antiquity. All of them will forever remain just stories and legends, however they are very interesting nonetheless.The first of these involves the ancient Greek poet/storyteller Homer.

He mentions a dark, bitter beverage that had the ability to prevent someone from becoming drowsy. Homer is said to have composed his Odyssey and Iliad around 800 B.C., therefore the earliest possible reference to coffee may date to this time period.

It is important to keep in mind that Homer does not refer to the beverage as 'coffee and there is no word in the classical Greek language for coffee.


Stories from the southern Arabian Peninsula (modern Yemen), where Europeans first discovered the cultivated coffee plant suggest that coffee may have been traded between Ethiopia and Yemen as early as 800 B.C. Some historians suggest the possibility that Arabian slave-traders who raided Africa as early as 1000 B.C. introduced coffee into Arabia. Still others suggest that when Ethiopia invaded the Arabian Peninsula in 525 A.D. they brought coffee with them and established the first coffee plants in Arabia at this time.

From : Old Town roasters