Douwe Egberts - Coffee Story

A history of coffee
(in less time than it takes to finish your cup!)

It all started with a frisky goat!
Legends write of a goat herder Kaldi, who in 850 noticed his goats were friskier after eating the red berries of a local shrub. These red berries each contained two green beans and it is in the highlands of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), that the world of coffee as we know it began. It is said that Kaldi told his story to the Monks and gave them some of the berries; as one of them didn’t like the taste he chucked a handfull into the fire. This was possibly the first time coffee was ever roasted and someone actually smelt the wonderful aroma. It took 250 years before the coffee plant arrived on the shores of Arabia and 750 years before it entered Europe!

In 1654, the first coffee house opened in Italy with Paris and England following suit. In 1690 the Dutch were the first to transport and trade coffee. (And you thought it was just tulips and edam!)

During this long journey, about 1,059 years(ish), key inventions have driven awareness and shaped coffee today; 1822 the first Espresso machine was invented; 1908 saw the first filter coffee machine and in 1909 instant coffee was produced.

Coffee was first known in Europe as Arabian Wine!
Today, coffee provides a living to more than 100 million people and is a world commodity, second only to oil.

From farm to cup...
Most of the world’s coffee is grown between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer (that’s a 2,000 mile band around the equator). From the 60 different coffee varieties available, Arabica and Robusta are the most commonly used. Arabicas tend to grow in the Americas and East Asia while Robustas are usually found in West Africa and Asia.

The red berries are harvested by hand or shaken off the tree once a year. They are then stripped of their flesh and the stones soaked. These stones are what we know as green coffee beans.

Phew...what a scorcher!
As with wine, green beans are carefully blended together before being roasted in very high temperatures of between 400° to 600°C. When the beans reach circa 200° to 250°C, they pop and caramelise - our beans are long and slow roasted so you get a better extraction.

The art of coffee has similarities with wine making. Master Blenders have acquired years of experience and knowledge to understand factors which give the coffee its distinct flavours (soil type, altitude, climate and variety are but a few). They also view roasting as an art in itself, finding the optimum roast height to bring out the full characteristics of the coffee bean.