It's a pleasure and an honour to feature the thoughts and writing of coffee industry great, Peter Giuliano. Peter's career has spanned all corners of the industry — from the world of hospitality and education to coffee procurement. He is one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary coffee, known for reshaping how we understand and appreciate quality, culture and value. His commitment to understanding these topics is matched only by his approachable writing and communication style which grounds these topics in everyday life. He passes on these vital cultural stories in a way that makes them accessible and appreciated, reaching everyone from everyday drinkers to coffee professionals. We're so pleased to platform Peter's story and voice. Enjoy!
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Why do people drink coffee, anyway? I realize this seems like a preposterous question, especially to a reader of a coffee-themed newspaper. “Because we love it,” is the obvious answer. But why? Why do we love coffee so much? It’s a simple question without an obvious answer: coffee doesn’t provide much nutrition, it’s considered by most to be an acquired taste, and it takes considerable effort to grow, process, roast, and prepare. But, despite all that, it’s beloved by millions. I began investigating this paradox in earnest when, 38 years ago I got my first job as a barista. I had already fallen in love with coffee, but I noticed that the customers in my shop were a diverse and varied bunch – they loved coffee too, but many had very different reasons than I did. I saw that each had their own motivations, likes, and dislikes about coffee. And I quickly realized that to be a good barista, I needed to understand: what makes these people – my customers – love coffee?
Before long, I became a coffee lifer, and this question motivated my professional career. Today, I research coffee as my job, which helps – we’ll get to that in a moment. But I’m also a lover of history, particularly the history of the things we eat and drink. The past reveals so much about us: why we eat the things we eat, what we value and reject, what we love and what we hate. So, let’s start at the beginning.
Coffea arabica, the species of coffee human beings first discovered and consumed, grows in only one place: the lush mountain forests that cover what is now Southern Ethiopia and South Sudan. People didn’t keep written records of the discovery and earliest use of coffee, so we have only oral history to rely upon. The most commonly told tale is of a goatherd named Kaldi, who was letting his goats munch on the forest’s shrubs. At some point, he noticed his goats acting differently – they were frolicking and playing more than usual, even dancing. Investigating further, he saw they were feeding on little red berries from a waxy-leaved bush, and being courageous, Kaldi decided to try some himself. Soon he was frolicking and dancing right along with the goats. A passing monk saw the scene and deduced that the berries had caused the energetic outburst of Kaldi and his flock. Gathering some of the fruits himself, the monk used the stimulating property of the berries to keep him awake during his long prayerful nights. Coffee had been discovered.
This origin tale, like most myths, doesn’t qualify as history. But what myths do is get to the heart of things – they reveal what we think is important, our deepest values and principles. And, clearly, the most important thing about coffee for the goats, for Kaldi, and for the monk, was energy. The coffee fruit seemed to be a magical source of power, quite different from food or wine. Coffee made the goats frolic, made Kaldi dance, and made the monk wakeful. The Kaldi mythos tells us what was important to the ancient Ethiopians about coffee: and that important thing was energy.
We get our first written records of coffee a few hundred years later, when the seeds of the coffee plant had made their way to Yemen, just across the Red Sea from Ethiopia. The ancient Yemeni scholar Abd al- Qadir al-Jaziri wrote the very first recorded history of coffee and noted it had been brought to Yemen by the Sufi mufti Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani. Al-Jaziri even gave us the reason: “(al-Dhabani) found that among its properties was that it drove away fatigue and lethargy and brought to the body a certain sprightliness and vigour.” Clearly, these men saw in coffee the same thing Kaldi had – stimulation, wakefulness, and energy.
But it’s clear that coffee soon developed another reputation as well. Our first European report of coffee comes from Leonhard Rauwolf, a German botanist and physician who visited Yemen in 1573. He described coffee as “A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful.” Rauwolf didn’t mention energy, but he did mention health. Coffee in Yemen and larger Arabia developed a reputation as a healthful beverage, due at least in part to its bitterness – bitter foods (and beverages) were always thought to be good, especially for digestion. Coffee gave you energy, but it was also good for you.
As coffee became a permanent part of the Arabian lifestyle, its use spread throughout the culture. And, as Rauwolf mentioned, coffee began to be consumed by people together, not in solitude at home. Soon, a special venue emerged called the maqha, a public place for drinking coffee (as depicted above). These early coffee-houses became social hubs in a culture that was previously home- centered – the very nature of coffee was seen as a driver for social togetherness and conviviality. Illustrations of maqhas of the period – we now call them coffee-houses – show people sitting in circles drinking coffee, discussing news, and enjoying each others’ company. Even today in Ethiopia, coffee is consumed ceremonially as a structured social event, where discussion and conversation are expected and encouraged. Coffee wasn’t just an energy-giving, healthful drink, it was also the driver for an entirely new social space: the coffee house.
