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COVER STORY

The world is divided into those who drink coffee and those who don’t.
By Park Seung-gyu cultural critic

The world is divided into those who drink coffee and those who don’t. Over the centuries, countless foods have stolen people’s hearts and taste buds, but coffee and cigarettes continue to attract fervent fascination.

The use of coffee for religious ceremonies and medicinal purposes was originally widespread, as was the use of spices. Numerous legends place the origins of coffee in the 6th to 8th centuries, It is said coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. It quickly became popular across the Islamic world, where Muslims accepted the effect of coffee as a blessing of God because it kept them awake and allowed them to pray all night long.

From Yemen, coffee was transmitted to sacred Muslim lands such as Mecca and Medina, then to Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. In medieval Europe, it was rejected as the devil’s drink from Islam, a “pagan” religion. In the early 17th century, the crop crossed the Mediterranean and entered France, Britain, and the Netherlands via Venice, Italy. Mocha, the name of a port in Yemen, has become a symbol of coffee. Although they say coffee saved the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, from death, it was a secret that stayed within the Arabian Peninsula for 1,000 years since the 7th century. Partly, it was because Muslims considered it sacred, but it was also a precious commodity that promised great wealth. The Arabs’ monopoly on coffee ended when a pilgrim took the coffee seeds to India. India became a huge coffee exporter in an instant, as British and Dutch merchants, who were colonizing India at the time, sent large amounts to their home countries.

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was the largest producer of coffee in the 1860s, accounting for 50% of the global production. However, in 1869, coffee trees were wiped out by an outbreak of leaf rust. After that, Ceylon switched to tea trees and became a tea kingdom. In Indonesia, Arabica coffee was introduced to Indonesia in 1696 by the Dutch. From around 1711, it was exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company. Three centuries after growing coffee, Indonesia emerged as the world’s leading spice exporter, as well as Asia’s largest and the world’s fourth-largest coffee supplier.

The contents of all articles may differ from the editorial direction of the ASEAN Culture House Monthly.