How Did You Really Get That Delicious Cup of Coffee Into Your Hands?

When you brew your coffee, or grab take-away at your local coffee shop, do you ever stop to think about the origin of coffee? You are forgiven if it never crosses your mind -- most of us probably don’t think about it. At Sicilia Coffee, we’d like to take this opportunity to help you visualise the evolution of the coffee bean. It’s quite a fascinating journey; we consulted the internet especially for you…

If Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of both man and coffee, does that explain the strong connection between coffee and our dependence on it for survival? Survival is subjective here, but the thought is worth pondering. 

Coffee, in the form that we know it, is apparently about 500 years old. Around the time that Michaelangelo was chiseling his statue of David. 

Way before then, Ethiopians discovered coffee plants among their forestry. They would forage for berries and such, but they would use all parts of the coffee plant for varied uses. It is commonly known that the coffee that we drink today is made from the seed (the green bean) inside the whole cherry of the coffee plant. The Ethiopians, however, were using the leaves as tea and were mixing the cherries with butter or milk to make a kind of food ball to be used as an energy snack. While this is probably not recommended as a kid’s lunch box option (or was it only my mind that went there?), I wonder if we all could do with a snack like this as a pick-me-up at the half point of the day.

So to recap: for thousands of years, despite the coffee plant being in use, it wasn’t being consumed in the way that we drink it today. Crazy, right? We won’t always be giving you a history lesson on this blog but sometimes a little bit of history in relation to a good ol’ journey helps you to appreciate how you got that delicious cup of coffee into your hands…

If you’re after a way to get a sense of this amazing Ethiopian history, all within a single cup, then our premium blend, Crema Forte, will help you get there. As you take a sip, maybe you can start to imagine the intricate history of the coffee bean stemming from Ethiopian land, and ending up in Yemen where commercial coffee production first began.

Let’s go back to the Ethiopians and their nifty coffee cherry food balls. If you do happen to come up with an unusual recipe for a coffee bean energy snack, we’d love to hear about it. Because who doesn’t love the usefulness of a caffeinated snack? For one, you can stash them in your bag or pocket. Imagine that there is no coffee machine in sight, having such a snack on hand would be a great way to recharge before that mundane meeting at your workplace, the night shift you need to power through, or the banal epic you need to sit through that your partner chose on movie night.

But maybe you are time or resource poor, and you’re simply not into making your own coffee snacks. We get it. Instant coffee was invented for a reason after all. But yet, if you do want that little bit of extra excitement in your life, there’s always chocolate-covered coffee beans. We’re curious if you have tried these before. If yes, do you like or dislike the bitterness of the bean? And the crunchy texture? Tell us about it. As a snack, it’s probably considered a delicacy, but it’s still more interesting than downing a carbonated, sugary, caffeinated drink… 

Ultimately, this got us thinking about unusual or notable recipes that use coffee. Please comment below your favourite food or beverage recipe (Tiramisu anyone?). We welcome your submissions and would love to feature the best one!