The History Of Coffee
Where it all began
Legend has it that coffee was discovered around 850 A.D. by Kaldi, an Abyssinian goat herder who lived at the source of the Blue Nile River. Observing his goats, Kaldi noticed that they would get very excited after chewing on some bright red berries, so he decided to try them and was soon overwhelmed by joy.
The Forbidden Fruit
Kaldi picked a bunch of the magic berries and brought them to the monks of a nearby monastery. The monks thought the fruits were evil and threw them in the fire. Roasting, they filled the holy place with a fragrant aroma. To preserve them, the berries were crushed and placed in a pan filled with hot water, which gave life to a rich and scented brew that the monks then drank all night to keep them awake during long prayers. With the conscious or unconscious blessing or approval of the monks, people started consuming coffee.
Down the Nile
The plant travelled down the Nile river into Uganda, growing wildly in the Kibale forest and dispatched to various region by the long-distance traders to various parts of East Africa. The Arabica coffee was introduced to Uganda through Ethiopia while robusta coffee grew natively in the Kampala forest and Lake Victoria region.
Crafting the landscape
Although the role of coffee in the transformation of the Ugandan landscape is hard to quantify, it is reasonable to argue that coffee plays an integral part of the rural landscape. In fact, the area cultivated with coffee expanded by 50% since 1990, and a fifth of agricultural households produce coffee on about 5% of total agricultural land. Because of the widespread loss of tree cover, coffee agroforestry could play a positive role for sustainable land use, especially if area expansion can be limited to land previously used for field crops or livestock.
Ugandan Coffee
Coffee is produced on small plots, often intercropped with banana (Matoke) or other food crops.
Years on from the legend, coffee has been known to have special spiritual qualities and powers, as well as medicinal and therapeutic value in Uganda. Priests of African Spirituality in Buganda, Bunyoro and Busoga have used, and to this day still use, coffee in ancient ceremonies and rituals to open channels of communication between humans and the supernatural world; to precipitate the flow of God’s grace among his people on earth; to communicate with and receive the blessings of the ancestors – and thereby restore harmony and harmonious living on Mother Earth; etc., etc. These ceremonies have existed for such a long time that today they are routinely performed by ordinary people in their communities, homes and family.