THE FIRST USE OF COFFEE IN EUROPE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 662, 6 November 1902, Page 21

THE FIRST USE OF COFFEE IN EUROPE.

The first authentic mention made ot coffee or its use by a European is probably that of Rau'wolf, a German physician and traveller, upon his, return from an extended tour through Syria, in 1573, the first scientific account of the plant being that given by Alpinus, an Italian naturalist, in his “ Medicina Egyptorium,” published in Venice, in 1591. Its use as a beverage is first referred to by two English travellers —Bidulph and Finch —the former, in writing of it in 1603, stating “ that the Turks have for their most common drink coffee—a blackish

drink made from a kind of pulse-like pease and called by them ‘ Coava.’ ” In 1607, Finch relates that “ the people of the island Socotra have for their best entertain-

ment a China dish called ‘ Cobo.’ a black, bitterish drink made of a berry very like a bay-berry, brought from Moka, and supped off hot.” Pietro Valla, a Venetian, in a letter written from Constantinople', in 1605, states that upon his return to Venice “ he would bring back with him some

coffee, which, he believed, was a thing heretofore unknown in his country,” and which he subsequently did. It. is also referred to, in 1621, by Burton, in his “ Anatomy of Melancholy,” as followt . — “ The Turks have a drink called coffee, so

named, from a berry, black as soot and as ■ bitter, which they sip up hot, because they find by experience that that Lind of drink, so used, helpeth digestion and promoteth alacrity.” Coffee in a liquid statcj is said to have" been sold in Rome as early ,as 1625. Some of the nrepai’id Leans of coffee were first carried) fiom Turkey to France by De la Haye as early at 1644 : , —“ Not only coffee, but also the proper apparatus for preparing it. ’ Tn 1657 a small' quantity was brought to Paris by Thevenot, its use, however, being confined solely to his own immediate family and a few friends. Up to*’this period, and for

many years after, it had never been seen >■ and scarcely ever heard of by the public at large in that country. In 1660 “ seve-

ral bales of coffee ” were shipped from Alexandria to Marseillaise, and in 1671 the first coffee-house was opened in the latter city near the exchange, “ where the merchants met to smoke, talk business, and divert themselves with play.” It was not until the year 1668 that, coffee-drink-ing became popular in France, though infrequent travellers had brought with them from the East a few pounds of the then curious berry. Tn that year Solieman Aga was sent as ambassador from Mahomet IV., where he soon became a “ lion,” through the splendid and unique entertainments at which he figured as a host. On bendec knees the blackslaves of the ambassador, arrayed in the most gorgeous Oriental costumes, presented the choicest Moka, in “tiny cups of egg-shell porcelain, hoe, strong, ancl fragrant, poured out on ■ saucers of gold and silver, placed on embroidered silk napkins fringed with gold bullion, to the grand dames who fluttered their fans with many grimaces, and bent their piquant faces —berouged, bepowdered and bepatchod—over the new and steaming beverage. Such was the half-barbaric occasion by which coffee firsc became generally known to that nation, which is now so largely dependent upon the “ brown berry of Arabia.” The Parisians immediately became quite enthusia'stic over it, the aristocracy adopting it as the fashionable beverage, ,it being recorded that the daughters of Lours XIV. had coffee imported expressly for the use of the Royal household, at a cost of £5OOO yearly.—(The “ GroceVs’ .Monthly.”)