Your Morning Coffee

You know your morning coffee begins with a bean. But do you know that coffee's story--like many good stories--begins with a goat? Legend has it that a 9th-century herdsman in Ethiopia noticed that his goat was acting kind of funny. It was unusually alert, maybe even a little jittery.

Looking closer, the herdsman saw that the goat had been nibbling on the red berries of a certain bush. Being of scientific temperament, the herdsman experimented by eating a few of the berries himself, and soon he and the goat were capering around together. The rest, as they say, is history.

Still, loopy Ethiopian goats are a long way from the dark and aromatic drink you have with breakfast. For coffee to become a thoroughly human beverage, someone had to go beyond just eating coffee berries. Someone had to realize that it wasn't the fruit of the berry that's so invigorating, it's the bean contained inside. Enter the Arabs.

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