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so this morning i'm drinking my coffee, and i'm making lude gestures at the people who do not exist and are not in my kitchen but that i'm holding a conversation with regardless, when someone strikes up a question about the origins of coffee.
and i am constantly fascinated by these questions, partly because yeah, whats the answer to them, and partly because how can i get a piece of this action and discover or create something that people will want to buy.
now i can only assume that coffee was not genetically engineered, that it's not a hybrid of a kidney bean and some sort of magic moon rock. but rather, that it was already growing, and was found in nature. and while the internet is a fabulous research tool, i think i may have stumbled upon the story of coffee, without the use of research, just by not sleeping for a while and then rambling to myself.
 so one day, somebody was going through the fields trying to find a use for all these mysterious black beans that were growing, and they put one in their mouth and ate it. it wasn't all that good, but they wouldn't let one ruin the experience.
after tasting a handful of beans, they decided that they were too much like eating dirt, and they had already made that mistake, and dirt was certainly no cash crop. they figured this bean was too hard to chew and when they finally did gnaw the beans down they found that they were quite grainy and not texturely pleasing.
so someone says, well if the coffee beans, at that point they were probably still called "midnight" beans, were too hard, maybe they should be soaked in hot water to soften them up. So a huge vat was constructed in the center of the villa and buckets of beans were loaded in. Why they did this in such a large scale while still in testing is beyond me. But they got buckets of water from the well and heated each of them over roaring fires, finally dumping them into the vat of beans. They gave it a good stir and let things settle, and then scooped out the beans with a strainer ladle with holes in it.
and everyone in town gave a taste, hoping for what was sure to be an exotic and rich flavored new bean for use in stews and rice dishes. but the beans still tasted like dirt, the grainy texture was still a factor and the mushiness was not at all the taste maker that they had counted on.
So the entire town, now embarassed that they had made a huge deal out of the crop, and wasted all that manpower building the vat, decided to smash the vat to pieces. As they did this, all the hot bean-flavored water escaped into the streets and barnyards.
the goats and cows were now up to their ankles in warm brownish liquid, and they did what any animal would do in this situation, they dipped their heads and had a drink.
moments later, a young boy pointed to a goat and exclaimed, "Doesn't that goat look more alert to everyone?"
upon further inspection, the crowd agreed that yes that goat was looking more lively than before, in fact all the animals had a bit of a bounce in their step, and that this midnight bean juice must be responsible.
at this point, an old man knelt down and cupping his hands scooped up some of the liquid and brought it to his lips. he said to those around him "goodness, if that isn't the richest tasting concoction, i've ever had, then i'm not an old man." but he certainly was.
more and more people began to partake in the taste test, and the reviews were mixed. Some very much liked the bold new flavor, while others were still not yet convinced, while still others had their reservations about drinking from a brown deluge that was full of, now very alert but still very dirty, barnyard creatures.
it was at this moment that one of the farmers came out into the crowd with a bucket. he had been milking one of his cows when the vat was broken, and it was now full of the spilled bean juice. he informed that crowd that he had been upset about the loss of the partial bucket of milk that was now simply ruined, until he had gotten a bit curious and given the mixture a try. he offered those who were not in favor of the straight stuff a taste and was able to win over many of them.
then there was probably some sort of accidental mixture with some sugar, like a sugar salesman was bringing his cart through town when the vat was tapped. His donkey, which was hitched to the cart, drank some of the liquid that had spilled and became very erratic as caffeine really negatively effected this particular donkey.
 in the donkey's spasms he knocked over the sugar cart and it spilled into the river of broth but also into the mouth of a suicidal man who had laid down under the flood from the vat to end his own life.
however the sugar and bean broth was so tasty when it fell into his mouth, that he realized there was so much to live for, and he quickly snatched up all the patents on coffee, the production of, and the mixing of with sugar and/or milk.
those patents have since expired, but that man made a pretty penny for quite awhile. That man's name was Juan Carlos Coffee.
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danwho kissed you on the nose on 03.03.05 @ 08:03 PM [link] |
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