Historical facts about coffee

JAKARTA (JP): What was the historical route of the brew which perks up millions?

Origins: Coffee is believed to have originated in the town of Kaffa in Ethiopia, writes Jane Pettigrew in Coffee, a 1999 tribute to the finest coffees of the world. Coffee's discovery is often attributed to a shepherd whose flock wandered over to a strange bush and were invigorated after consuming the beans. Pettigrew says coffee was originally rolled into balls of fat and eaten by travelers for sustenance over long journeys. By the early 1500s, however, the beans were being brewed and coffee houses were common in Mecca.

Varieties: There are about 25 different types of coffee but only two -- arabica and robusta -- are produced on a commercial basis. Indonesia is one of 36 coffee-producing countries (Sumatra is the world's third largest producer). Robusta is generally used for instant coffees, arabica for gourmet selections (in Indonesia coffee is often mixed with roasted corn to save on costs).

Java Jive: Coffee was first produced by the Dutch in Java in 1699. Pettigrew writes that coffee from Java developed its outstanding reputation due to a quirk of logistics; because of Java's distance from Europe and North America, the beans were well-matured by the time they the reached foreign markets.

"Customers became so used to the more mellow flavor that they refused to accept younger, more acidic beans. So Indonesian producers developed a system of storing the beans for several years in warehouses prior to export," Pettigrew writes. One of the most famous is the Aroma factory in Bandung, dating back to the 1930s. (brc)