Join us as we trace coffee’s journey from legend to modern day. In this episode we explore the legendary origin of coffee – the 9th-century Ethiopian goat-herder Kaldi who noticed his goats bouncing with energy after eating red coffee cherries. We discuss how monks first brewed those cherries to stay awake, and how knowledge of the beverage spread east to Yemen by the 15th century (where it was known as the “wine of Arabia” ). We then cover how coffee arrived in Europe in the 1600s. At first it aroused suspicion (some called it the “bitter invention of Satan”), but after Pope Clement VIII tasted it and loved it, coffeehouses soon flourished. These European coffeehouses became the “penny universities” of the Enlightenment, where for the price of a cup people gathered to debate ideas.

Next, we look at coffee’s global spread. We explain how, in the 18th century, bold smugglers took coffee plants from their Arab strongholds to new lands – famously a French governor’s wife secretly sent a coffee seedling to Brazil in a bouquet, seeding what would become the world’s largest coffee industry. We also touch on America’s adoption of coffee: after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, many patriots made coffee their drink of choice. By the 19th and 20th centuries coffee had become a mass-market commodity. Brands like Folgers and Maxwell House brought it to every pantry (this was the first wave of coffee). Then came the second wave – the rise of cafés and chains (think classic lattes and big foamy drinks, made famous by Starbucks and others) – and finally today’s third wave of specialty coffee, with an emphasis on single-origin beans, precise brewing methods, and sustainability.

Could there be a “fourth wave” of coffee, treating it like a fine wine? We ponder high-tech brewers, filter coffee trends versus espresso, and how coffee culture keeps evolving.

0:00 Intro

2:15 What We're Drinking

7:24 Jack's First Competition Victory

13:25 Espresso Machines & Coffee Tech Talk

18:26 Introducing the History of Coffee

19:08 Ethiopian Legend: Kaldi & the Goats

21:34 Coffee in Yemen & the “Wine of Arabia”

23:18 Coffee Reaches Europe: Papal Controversy

25:13 Rise of Penny Universities

28:54 Global Coffee Boom

31:15 Coffee Revolutionizes America

33:20 Industrial Coffee

Equal Parts Coffee Podcast

Episodes

20 - The History Of Coffee