Check out: http://www.koffeekorner.com/koffeehistory.htm for more information. The legend has it that the actual coffee beans were discovered c. 850 in Ethiopia, when goat herders noticed that goats got hyperactive upon eating them. The goat herders tried it themselves, and thus coffee was discovered. Around 1100, Arabs in the area of what is now Yemen began to roast/boil the coffee beans to make a drink. In 1475, the first coffee shop opened in Constantinople (now Istanbul), and two coffee houses opened in 1554. This is the point where coffee drinking became a popular social activity. In the 1600s, Ottoman traders introduced coffee to Europe, and eventually it was smuggled to the West and East Indies (by European traders) to be grown there. So even though we often drink coffee that comes from Brazil or Colombia, it is native to the Middle East, not to South America.

The most most commen legend of the origen of coffee is about Kaldi a young Abyssian (ethionpian) goatherd, and his dancing goats. Kaldi was used to seeing his goats behave in a normal fashion, so when he found the entire herd cavorting and dashing about the feild one day, he was astonished. Watching there frolics, he wonderd wether it could be somthing they had eaten. He followed them as theey wondered up and down the hill sides looking for food, and soon observed theirpartiality to the red berries of a certain shortbush like tree. Cautiously, Kaldi chewed a handful of the berries himself. he did not have to wait long until, infused with an unexpected wave of energy he too, began to dance. In time, a passing monk, an imam, saw the dancing goatherd and the dancing goats. Kaldi showed the curious holy man the berries and explaind their effects. The monk, in turn, introduced the berries to his monistary, where they were prononced good: they kep monks from dozing and allowed more time for prayer. regardless of wether it was kaldi or some one else who first happened upon coffes reviving powers, the practice of chewing the barries and later fermenting them to make a sort of wine , spred rapidly throughout North Africa and the Arabian Penisula. By the 13th century, the further refinement of roasting the beans and grinding them had been invented in persia, and cofee as we know it was born. In Arabic, the new drink was called Qahwah, word that origanaly ment invigorating and was also used to discribe wine. The same word became the turkish Kahweh, which led ti the french Cafe, the italian Caffe, the dutch Koffie the german Kaffee, and of corse the english coffee. By any name, it was considered a holy drink it use was restricted to monks

But when did drinking coffee become popular in the States? Its popularity in North America began shortly after the Boston Tea party and American independence. Americans, wishing to be different and apart from their former rulers (and the rest of the world-- tea is favored in most of the eastern hemisphere), took up drinking coffee instead of drinking tea. Coffee has been there for cops, construction workers and nurses ever since.

Arabia is where the bean was first discovered. It spread to Turkey and eventually to Europe and the British Isles.

Not all of North Africa was or is Muslem. Coptic christianity has, almost from the time of Christ, been a major religeon in Abyssinia (Ethiopia.