272/365: National Coffee Day

You’re in for a brewed awakening if you choose to celebrate today’s food holiday. September 29 is National Coffee Day!

Our beloved Keurig.

I wrote about one legend surrounding coffee’s origination here. An alternate version claims that a mystic from Yemen, Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili, was traveling through Ethiopia and noticed the birds flying about seemed to have a lot of energy. al-Shadhili attributed this to the berries they were eating, and tried a few himself. He returned to his native land with strange requests for “double espressos” and “lattes, skinny, extra foam.” Another story says Sheik Abou’l Hasan Schadheli’s disciple, Omar – who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer – was banished from his home in Mocha (seriously) to a cave in the desert. With nothing to eat, he resorted to chewing on berries he found growing on wild shrubbery nearby, but found these too bitter. He attempted roasting them, but they turned too hard, so he boiled them to soften the beans, and subsisted on the ensuing beverage for days. Omar was revitalized, and when word of this “miracle drug” reached Mocha, he was asked to return, and made a Saint. The beverage spread around the globe, but was slow to gain a foothold in the United States until the Boston Tea Party, when colonists rebelling against high tea taxes took up coffee instead. Today, Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee a day, more than any other country in the world.

Tara and I are big coffee fans, and invested in a Keurig coffeemaker last year. It was actually our first joint purchase, one that gets a lot of use in our household. You can’t beat the convenience of k-cups, and there’s very little wasted coffee. To celebrate, we….are you holding your breath in anticipation yet?…drank coffee.

Ooh. Ahh.

Related articles

• Canadians say they’d give up almost anything before coffee (bizjournals.com)
• 12 days without coffee… (lefranks.wordpress.com)
• September 29 is national coffee day, see where you can grab free joe (al.com)