Eau Claire's Coffee Culture

Written By: Naomi Stanley  |  Posted: Friday, January 30th, 2015

            Coffee is a delicious, caffeinated beverage essential to the lives of millions of people, including myself, all across the world, this nation, and particularly Eau Claire. According to the International Coffee Organization, coffee trees originated in the Ethiopian province of Kaffa, and from there the tradition of eating chocolate-covered coffee beans and brewing coffee beverages traveled to Sudan and then on to Yemen during the 15^th century.

   The original coffee houses, which were called "kaveh kanes," opened up in Mecca and became the social hub of chess players, musicians, performing dancers, and serious businessmen. Though the Arabian government immediately banned the exportation of coffee beans in order to keep the profits within their own economy, the Dutch managed to smuggle live coffee plants out of places such as Sudan and Yemen into greenhouses in the Netherlands by the 16^th century.  From the Netherlands, coffee trees spread to India and Indonesia, and the Dutch became the main suppliers of coffee to European countries. By the late 1600s, coffee houses opened in American cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other smaller towns. Coffee houses spread all across the nation and set fire to the coffee industry that would quickly become an integral part of American society.

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