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Gourmet Coffee, Green Mountain Coffee &
Single Cup Coffee Makers
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The Story of Coffee -
Articles
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Coffee is our constant companion...
We begin our day with a breakfast
cup. Share stories and secrets and
laughter over a late afternoon
latte. We end a perfect meal with
dessert and a dark-roasted
demitasse.
Coffee's heady aroma can transport
us... to gramma's kitchen table. To
that little French bistro, or that
memorable Autumn in a quaint Vermont
village.
For all the tremendous effort
required to grow and harvest coffee
— and the passion to select, roast
and blend the beans just-so — coffee
remains one of life's few simple
pleasures.
This is the story of coffee. Of its
rich history, its legend and
lore—and its long journey from tree
to cup.
By all accounts (and there are many,
as the story has been retold many,
many times) Kaldi was a very
responsible young man, and not one
to do foolish things. Every day
Kaldi would set his goats to grazing
in the hills that surrounded his
village, and every evening his loyal
goats would return home. This, of
course, would suggest that the goats
were the responsible parties. How
foolish is it, after all, to just
turn your goats loose into the hills
every morning? But, back to our
story...
One evening, Kaldi's goats did not
return home. The young man, no doubt
feeling a little foolish by now,
searched for his herd all through
the night, and as morning broke he
found them, leaping and dancing with
reckless abandon and apparent glee
round a stand of shiny, dark-leafed
shrubs with bright red berries.
Kaldi took in the scene before him,
amazed. He soon decided it must be
the berries that caused such
reckless behavior in his otherwise
responsible goats, and — forgetting
everything his mother told him about
eating strange foods from strange
places — Kaldi sampled the berries,
himself. In no time, he too was
dancing gleefully with his goats
around the green-leafed shrubs.
Soon, we are told, a wise and
learned man passed by —an imam, or
monk— trudging sleepily on his way
to prayer. The imam rubbed his eyes
and took in the scene before him —Kaldi
and his goats— dancing gleefully
about a stand of shiny, dark-leafed
shrubs with bright red berries.
Being both a curious and learned
man, the imam gathered some of these
berries, himself, and on returning
home he studied them. In his
experiments with the bright red
berries, he roasted them, boiled
them and sampled the resulting
beverage. He shared what he found
with the rest of his fellow monks,
and soon none fell asleep at
prayers! And so coffee spread from
place to place, creating a more
gleeful, and wakeful, world.
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