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However, as with anything that is woven into the cultural fabric of so many countries coffee has a history that contributes to its worldwide popularity today.
So, sit back and discover "the rest of the story.
"I'll sip a cup while writing this article.
The Popularity of Coffee: An Historical Prospective In 850 coffee was discovered by a goat herder in Ethiopia who notices his goats are friskier after eating strange red berries.
But the internet was slower then and coffee wasn't cultivated for another 250 years on the Arabian Peninsula.
Because Arab Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol they made a beverage from plants called "qahwa.
"It was here, at around the year 1100, that the beans were first roasted and boiled.
What wine was to the Europeans, coffee became to the Arabs.
In 1475 the worlds first coffee shop opens in Constantinople.
Two more follow 80 years later.
As trade routes were established from Arabia into Africa and Europe this new bean, and beverage, enters Europe through the port of Venice and by 1654 the first coffeehouses open in Italy.
As the Europeans established trade routes around the world coffee was a main component of trade.
Coffee is introduced to the New World by Captain John Smith, who established Virginia.
While the colonists enjoyed both tea and coffee with a preference for tea, British taxation of tea, and with the history that followed, caused coffee to become the hot beverage of choice for most Americans.
The Role of the Coffeehouse Just as restaurants opened to satisfy the social need of people, in addition to the biological, coffeehouses allowed people soon to sit down together and enjoy coffee outside of their homes.
Soon, an association between coffee and with social interaction began to form.
Arabs began to view coffee as a social drink, similar to our view in modern times.
But Arabs also saw it as an intellectual drink calling it "the milk of thinkers and chess players.
" Something similar happened in England.
Because a penny is charged for admission and a cup of coffee, coffeehouses are called "penny universities.
"Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse opens in 1688 and eventually becomes Lloyd's of London, the world's best known insurance company.
The word "TIPS" is coined in an English coffee house:A sign reading "To Insure Prompt Service" (TIPS) was place by a cup.
Those desiring prompt service and better seating threw a coin into a tin.
Worldwide Cultivation With its popularity growing it was inevitable that the cultivation could not be contained in Arabia.
In 1690, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially.
Coffee is smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha and transported to Ceylon and East Indies for cultivation.
At around 1723, plants are introduced in the Americas for cultivation.
A French naval officer transports a seedling to Martinique and by 1777, 1.
92 billion coffee plants are cultivated on the island.
The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start in 1727 with seedlings smuggled out of Paris.
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