Coffee (alteration of Ottoman Turkish “qahveh” and from Arabic “qahwa”)

While tending his sheep, a sheep herder from Caffa, Ethiopia noticed that the sheep became hyperactive after eating the red “cherries” from a certain plant when they changed pastures so he tried a few himself and was soon as overactive as his herd. Later, monks soon discovered that this fruit from the shiny green plant could help them stay awake for their prayers. They began cultivating the shrub in their gardens to make wine from the pulp of the fermented coffee berries. This beverage was known as “qishr” and was used during religious ceremonies.

Early Christians believed coffee to be the devil’s drink. Pope Vincent III heard this and decided to taste it before he banished it but enjoyed it so much he baptized it, saying “coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.”

Today, coffee berries and their seeds undergo several processes before they become the familiar roasted coffee. They’re picked and sorted by ripeness and colour and the flesh and slimy mucilage layers of the berry are removed to leave the green coffee bean which is then roasted. As the heat breaks down starches into simple sugars in the bean, caramelisation occurs as the bean begins to brown and aromatic oils, acids, and caffeine weaken. One of these oils is caffeol, created at about 200 °C (392 °F), which is largely responsible for coffee’s aroma and flavour. Depending on the colour of the roasted beans they are labelled from light through to very dark. Lighter roasts have more caffeine and are thought to have a stronger flavour from aromatic oils and acids otherwise destroyed by longer roasting times. Darker roasts are generally smoother, because they have less fibre content and a more sugary flavour.

AlleyCats proudly uses Rainforest Alliance certified beans