Tuesday 17 December 2019

'The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth'

All About Coffee | A Primer for All Coffeeholics Out There!

This book titled, All About Coffee, is so unique and one of its kind! Well, it’s all about coffee, and it’s got everything you really wanted to know about your daily brew!

Before we quite begin our sojourn into this amazing 1923 book [written by William H. Ukers and runs to a whopping 820 pages], a million thanks are due to Dr. Shibu for so thoughtfully sending across this book to me, one of his own ilk on the coffee trove!

And as a prelude to our journey into this cuppa trove, let me first and foremost take you all straight to chapter XXXVII of the book, that gives some intense poems on Coffee, ;-) that would act the real stimulant and excitant on this, our sacred journey into the divine cuppa!


So here we go with excerpts from this 1923 book! - 

Chapter XXXVII

A HISTORY OF COFFEE IN LITERATURE

The romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and on the writers of today - Coffee in Ancient and Modern Verse - In Dramatic Literature - In General Literature - Coffee Quips and Anecdotes

Any study of the literature of coffee comprehends a survey of selections from the best thought of civilized nations, from the time of Rhazes (850–922) to Francis Saltus. Rhazes, the physician-philosopher, appears to have been the first writer to mention coffee; and was followed by other great physicians, like Bengiazlah, a contemporary, and Avicenna (980–1037).

Then arose many legends about coffee, that served as inspiration for Arabian, French, Italian, and English poets.

Sheik Gemaleddin, mufti of Mocha, is said to have discovered the virtues of coffee about 1454, and to have promoted the use of the drink in Arabia. Knowledge of the new beverage was given to Europeans by the botanists Rauwolf and Alpini toward the close of the sixteenth century.

The first authentic account of the origin of coffee was written by Abd-al-Kâdir in 1587. It is the famous Arabian manuscript commending the use of coffee, preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, and catalogued as “Arabe, 4590.”

Abd-al-Kâdir’s book has immortalized coffee. It is in seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the etymology and significance of the word cahouah (kahwa), the nature and properties of the bean, where the drink was first used, and describes its virtues. The other chapters have to do largely with the church dispute in Mecca in 1511, answer the religious objectors to coffee, and conclude with a collection of Arabic verses composed during the Mecca controversy by the best poets of the time.

De Nointel, ambassador from the court of Louis XIV to the Ottoman Porte, brought back with him to Paris from Constantinople the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript, and another by Bichivili, one of the three general treasurers of the Ottoman Empire. The latter work is of a later date than the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript, and is concerned chiefly with the history of the introduction of coffee into Egypt, Syria, Damascus, Aleppo, and Constantinople.

The following are two of the earliest Arabic poems in praise of coffee. They are about the period of the first coffee persecution in Mecca (1511), and are typical of the best thought of the day:

In Praise of Coffee

[Translation from the Arabic]

O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all cares, thou art the object of desire to the scholar.
This is the beverage of the friends of God; it gives health to those in its service who strive after wisdom.
Prepared from the simple shell of the berry, it has the odor of musk and the color of ink.
The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth.
May God deprive of this drink the foolish man who condemns it with incurable obstinacy.
Coffee is our gold. Wherever it is served, one enjoys the society of the noblest and most generous men.
O drink! As harmless as pure milk, which differs from it only in its blackness.

Coffee Companionship

[Translation from the Arabic]

Come and enjoy the company of coffee in the places of its habitation; for the Divine Goodness envelops those who partake of its feast.

There the elegance of the rugs, the sweetness of life, the society of the guests, all give a picture of the abode of the blest.

It is a wine which no sorrow could resist when the cup-bearer presents thee with the cup which contains it.

It is not long since Aden saw thy birth. If thou doubtest this, see the freshness of youth shining on the faces of thy children.

Grief is not found within its habitations. Trouble yields humbly to its power.

It is the beverage of the children of God, it is the source of health.

It is the stream in which we wash away our sorrows. It is the fire which consumes our griefs.

Whoever has once known the chafing-dish which prepares this beverage, will feel only aversion for wine and liquor from casks.

Delicious beverage, its color is the seal of its purity.

Reason pronounces favorably on the lawfulness of it.

Drink of it confidently, and give not ear to the speech of the foolish, who condemn it without reason.

During the period of the second religious persecution of coffee in the latter part of the sixteenth century, other Arabian poets sang the praises of coffee. The learned Fakr-Eddin-Aboubeckr ben Abid Iesi wrote a book entitled The Triumph of Coffee, and the poet-sheikh Sherif-Eddin-Omar-ben-Faredh sang of it in harmonious verse, wherein, discoursing of his mistress, he could find no more flattering comparison than coffee. He exclaims, “She has made me drink, in long draughts, the fever, or, rather, the coffee of love!”

To be continued…

image: amazondotcom

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