Introduction to Coffee Culture
Coffee’s pop icon status is firmly established, from Starbucks’ legendary Frappuccino to the latest TikTok trends that prompted us to try Dalgona or Cloud Coffee. But beyond fashion symptoms, coffee was brewed in ceremonies and drunk in salons across time and geography. Its story is permeated with colonialism, and revolutionary thinkers also fueled institutions that serve it.
Mythical and Spiritual Roots
The legend wrote an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, who discovered coffee after noticing that his goats were grumpy because they had eaten red berries. While the story is probably apocryphal, coffee – namely the Arabica variety – is indeed native to the Kaffa region of Ethiopia, where it still plays a ritual role. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony, in which beans are roasted over an open flame and brewed in a clay pot, is a moment of break, hospitality, and community.
In Senegal, Cafe Touba – infused with Guinea pepper and cloves – comes from Islamic Sufi traditions and is both a drink and a spiritual practice. In Turkey, the coffee brewed in a copper pot is often followed by reading the remaining grounds, a centuries-old tradition that is still valued. In Brazil, the Cafezinho – a tiny, sweet coffee serving – is a symbol of greeting and is offered everywhere from houses to street corners.
Unique Flavors: Cheese, Egg, and Poop?
In all cultures, coffee has received wildly inventive forms. In Nordic countries such as Finland and Sweden, black-cooked coffee is sometimes cast in a centuries-old tradition over coffee cubes or "coffee cheese" from cow or reindeer milk. Vietnam’s ca phe trung (or egg coffee) mixes beaten egg yolk with sweetened condensed milk – an improvisation of the war that is now omnipresent.
Then there is Indonesia’s Kopi Luwak, often referred to as the "holy grail of coffee" and made from partially digested beans, which were eaten and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet. Although Kopi Luwak was valued for its smooth, fermented taste, it is ethically controversial. Some producers have prompted others to cage and force-feed civets. Others are now promoting "wild sourcing" versions of free animals, but third-party checks are inconsistent.
From Holy Brew to Global Commodity
Coffee not only traveled in sacks – it traveled with trading winds, spiritual trips, and imperial ambitions. Although discovered in Ethiopia, the earliest written proof of coffee cultivation indicates Yemen. There it acquired the Arabic term "Qahwa" – originally wine – that led to the words coffee and café. Sufi mystics drank it to maintain spiritual focus for long night chants. The port of Mokka on the coast of Yemen became a trading center and shipping beans in the Islamic world and to Asia.
Another legend says that an Indian Sufi saint, Baba Budan, smuggled seven fertile beans from Yemen to southern India in the 17th century and opposed an Arab monopoly. This act exposed coffee plantations in Karnataka’s Chikmagalur region. Soon the European colonial powers also seized the potential of the bean. The Dutch planted it in Java, the French in the Caribbean, and the Portuguese in Brazil – any expansion that was driven by empire and based on the back of the workforce.
Cafes: Conspiracies, Unrest, and Cats
In the course of history, cafes were more than just water holes – they were incubators of ideas, art, and revolution. In Istanbul of the 16th century, the authorities repeatedly tried to prohibit them because they feared that gatherings could trigger unrest with caffeine. In Europe of the Enlightenment, cups offered a cup of coffee and an intoxicating dose of radical thoughts that were visited by thinkers such as Voltaire and Rousseau.
In colonial America, coffee became a patriotic replacement for British-controlled tea. The Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, which was described as the "headquarters of the revolution," organized the Sons of Liberty – activists who organized resistance to British rule, in particular unfair taxation and guidelines, which ultimately led to the American Revolution. In the past few decades, cafes have returned as "third places" – neither at home nor office, but somewhere in between. Coffee houses have also developed into protective houses for modern life.
In the early nineties, when internet access at home was not yet widespread, many cafes began to offer public internet access, which caused people to flock to these rooms. In the meantime, other cafe owners had unusual advantages for their business. In Taipei, the first cat cafe in the world – Cat Flower Garden – was opened in 1998, which offers city organizers a cozy space for sipping and socializing among cat attendants. The trend exploded in Japan and now lives worldwide, where the mixture of caffeine and calm again and again overstimulates cities.
