There's more to coffee than firing up the brain

By Andy Ho

SCIENCE MONITOR

IF YOU fancy a cappuccino or macchiato with your burger and fries, McDonald's is opening a McCafe next to its outlet in Great World City next week. That the so-called Golden Arches are invading Starbucks territory says how pervasive the gourmet coffee culture here is.

Yet there seems to be a smidgen of guilt that always goes with that cup of silky smooth mocha and it's been that way for a long time.

Originally found on shrubs in the hills of Ethiopia, shepherds noticed their sheep stayed awake all night after eating the cherries.

The bean was taken across the Red Sea to Yemen around AD1400, where people turned it into a pungent fermented beverage called qahwah. Sufi mystics would quaff copious amounts of qahwah prior to their ecstatic exercises. Before each draught, they would shout: 'Ya qawi!' meaning 'O strong one!'

Qawi, some historians believe, is the root word for coffee. In 1542, the Ottoman empire tried unsuccessfully to ban the 'sinful' drink. By the early 1600s, European coffee shops were serving it, not fermented, but as the hot beverage we now know.

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