Our Ethiopian Experience Pt. 1 | OBIIS

Category: One BIGG Island in Space

By Michelle Fish

Hard to believe, but once upon a time there was no coffee. People got up in the morning, went to work, fell in love, stayed up late, ran marathons, made speeches, wrote poems… all without coffee.

Then about a thousand years ago, so the story goes, a young goat herder named Kaldi noticed something strange. His goats, normally all about eating, head butting, and standing on top of things like goats do, started acting strangely. Agitated. Dancing, even. They were normal, then they started chewing on some red cherry-like berries, and all hell broke loose.

Kaldi thought he’d try a few of those berries himself. And he liked them. So much so, that he figured they must be the work of the devil. He took them to the nearest monastery, just to be sure, and the monks agreed: the devil’s candy. They threw the cherries into the fire. But oh, the aroma of the smoke that wafted up from the toasting coffee beans inside those red cherries smelled so heavenly, so delicious, that the monks changed their minds.

And coffee was born.

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