No other beverage has been the subject of so much controversy throughout history than coffee. Alternately called a magic potion or a poison, there is no middle ground for a drink that has been looked on with suspicion for centuries, this brew ‘black as the devil’s piss whose beans, when roasted, are like dirt.’ The eating of dirt was forbidden by Muhammad, therefore muslim holy men sought to forbid its consumption when coffee first began to become popular in Arabia (now Yemen). After much debate qahwa, as coffee was called by the Arabs, was deemed mekruh—undesirable, by religious scholars and only administered in small doses for diseases of the blood and bowels. Too much coffee could poison, it was believed.

First identified in Ethiopia in the 9th century, coffee was used in religious ceremonies in Yemen and Africa. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its consumption. Coffee was then banned in Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century for political reasons even though Istanbul boasts about having opened the first coffee house in 1457. But business is business. Commerce continued between La Serenissima and the Ottomans and the first coffee house was established in Venice in 1645. Italian clergy, however, believed that coffee was the work of the devil and urged its excommunication. Thankfully, Pope Clemens VIII, a great coffee-lover himself, saved the day by declaring that coffee ought to be baptized to make it a catholic beverage.

Amongst merchants, coffee soon acquired the reputation of being the drink of commerce or, as was often said at the time, ‘the man who drinks coffee fruit cares only for his business. It is taken not to delight the senses but to awaken the intellect. People drink it at breakfast to regain their senses and at night to stay awake longer. As with all good things, men soon found a way to keep women from drinking this potion.

As the legend goes, when the Queen of Sheba went to visit King Solomon, she brought with her an offering of the most exotic spices from the East in a great chest. This chest, it is told, contained coffee berries, which the king ate. That night after the court went to bed the King was so full of desire, he forced himself on the Queen. From then on legend circulated that the coffee fruit had spurred his lust. Perhaps this is why in the most pious European circles it was believed that coffee rendered women overly libidinous. Because of their delicate humors, the concerned patriarchs argued, women were incapable of withstanding the onslaught of passion that coffee unleashed, and thus they were forbidden from drinking it. Some men went as far as to beat their wives if they found them drinking coffee. The brew, they argued, bewitches women. It makes them saucy when they should be meek; pert when they should be pliant. The brew poisons them with lust. To safeguard women from appetites they would most likely be too weak to control, in France and England they were banned from the coffee houses.

a phenomenon who sprouted in a society where the idea of educating a woman was considered ridiculous, and the art of courting the only way in which she could carve a place in society. Married at 19 to the Marquis du Châtelet, she dutifully produced three children and then went on to conquer the heart of Voltaire. It is said that her lover at the time, the Duc de Richelieu, encouraged her to dress in men’s clothes to visit a coffee house and that there is where she met Voltaire. Another account tells that impatient to discuss a math- ematical breakthrough with Voltaire, she disguised herself as a man to be able to see him. Though it is unclear if this deed caused any rifts in her marriage—she was, after all, already emancipated from her husband by mutual accord—du Chatelet’s behavior was deemed scandalous, not so much because she had stepped in the
coffee house despite the ban, but because she had done so wearing breeches. Here, however, was a woman who as a child willed her father to provide an adequate education for her, then went on to describe marriage as a ‘form of psychological captivity.’ She shrugged away the censure and went on with hetr work (hers is the first French translation of Newton’s Principia). ‘Du Chatelet was a great man whose only fault was being a woman,’ said Voltaire.

From a place of political gatherings in Mecca to a place where business was conducted or great intellectual works hatched (the idea for L’Encyclopedie was born in the Café Le Procope in Paris, where Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot started the Enlightenment movement), the coffee house remained steadfastly indifferent to social status, though not to gender. The coffee house, as Social Leveler par excellence, was the place where men of different religions and different political leanings met as friends to exchange the latest news, develop new philosophies, and discuss business over a cup of coffee while women remained caffeine free and excluded.

Meanwhile in Turkey, where people had been enjoying the drink for more than five centuries, a woman could divorce her husband if he did not provide her with enough coffee. Coffee, however, was slow to divorce itself of its bad reputation. Unlike wine, a beverage said to be ‘the drink of the gods,’ coffee was often compared to ‘the devil’s piss’ and regarded with suspicion. The brew was even mixed with wine when it first arrived in Europe while the traditional way of boiling it three times in a copper pot to darken and distill it was slow to gain favor. Milk and sugar were soon being added in spite of the Turkish belief that combining milk with coffee caused leprosy. But coffee is like wine, with hundreds of varieties and flavors. By the mid-17th century many nations around the world were drinking it, each with its own predilections. In the East Indies, for example, the natives used to brew a flavorful drink, gold in color, that had a muskier taste than most coffees. It was called monkey coffee and it was made from the droppings of a small primate who ate only the most perfect berries of the coffee plant. Though considered a delicacy amongst connoisseurs, for some reason this brew never gained the popularity that Turkish Coffee enjoyed.

The wondrous beverage finally made its way to Poland in 1683, when King Sobieski defeated the Turks in the Battle of Vienna. It is said that in their haste to flee, Turkish soldiers left behind several sacks containing green seeds. The king gave the seeds to one of his officers, who then went on to open a coffee house in Vienna. Thus began Poland’s coffee adventure: the Turks may not have been able to conquer Vienna, but coffee was. Traditionally, coffee is shipped to Europe from Asia, Africa, and the Americas through two main ports: Calabria and Hamburg. Coffee arrives to Poland via Hamburg. From there, the beans are transported by train or rig to distributors in different cities, who then go on to supply the specialty stores, coffee houses and big chains like Coffee Heaven and Green Coffee. As of this year, expect a new big chain arrival in Poland: the much anticipated Starbucks Coffee.

Originally from Seattle, the franchise is so big that not one day goes by without an outlet being opened somewhere in the world. Its logo with a long-haired woman is one of the most widely recognized in the United States. But not everybody is keen on the emblem. When Starbucks brought its concept to Saudi Arabia, the coffee house wasn’t allowed to open for business until its trademark woman was substituted by a man. Which only goes to prove that old habits die hard. In the age of globalization,coffee is the world’s second largest commodity after oil, of which the Saudis control the biggest reserves, thus losing a bit of integrity to turn a buck (or a starbuck in this case), shouldn’t be surprising. Nor that one third of the world’s drinking water is used for coffee or that twenty-two million house- holds in the world are involved in the coffee business. Impressive statistics for a brew that for many centuries was stigmatized by its detractors. And even in those instances when coffee was used for medicinal purposes, the drink wasn’t given to women for fear it would cause them to miscarry. Whether they were pregnant or not. Recent studies, however, have shown that coffee has no side effects on pregnancy even though roasting causes the beans to go through more than two hundred chemical changes.

Now, if drinking coffee is healthy or unhealthy, no other substance has been so much vilified. Case in point: if someone is allergic to peanuts and happens to eat the nuts or one of its byproducts, this person could be gravelly ill. As far as I know, nobody is demonizing peanut butter, calling it ‘the devil’s vomit’ and keeping mothers from packing peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches in their children’s lunches. Thank goodness coffee has come a long way since its beginnings, when superstition and distrust surrounded the beverage!

Though voicing its wonders with caution still, it is said that coffee ‘has an invigorating effect, prevents strokes, appears to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, diabetes type 2, cirrhosis of the liver, and gout; it improves reflexes and concentration, and enhances cognitive powers and short-term memory.’ Excellent news for those of us who are unable to begin our day without first drinking a cup of coffee.

Yes. Coffee is a sexy, delectable beverage that has spurred many a romance, if only because it is by far less complicated to meet a new prospect or a blind date for coffee than go through the ordeal of dinner and risk the possibility of disaster. Coffee, as a matter of fact, has not only managed to maintain its status as social leveler; it has become so widely accepted as a social catalyst, anybody can say ‘let’s meet for coffee!’ without fear of committing a social faux pas or sounding too forward. Even if it’s a woman who proposes it.

*This article was originally published in the Warsaw Insider, issue 139, March 2008

By America Martin