THE DISCOVERY OF COFFEE @museum.de

There are a lot of legends about how coffee was first discovered. This one features goats and monks. In the highlands of Ethiopia, in Kaffa Province, a goat herder complained to the local monks that his animals wouldn’t settle down.

The monks went to look, and in the area where the animals were grazing, they found a dark green plant with green, yellow and red fruits – which the goats were nibbling on.

Could these fruits be responsible for the goats' odd behaviour?

The monks became curious and sampled the cherry-like fruits.

Shortly afterwards, the monks realised that they needed less sleep after eating the berries and were able to spend longer at prayer. They’d discovered coffee’s stimulant effect.

We have some replica coffee plants on display here in the museum. The fruit usually contains two pips with their flat sides pressed close together – that’s what we call the coffee bean. Those green seeds taste more like grain and there’s no familiar coffee aroma. Excavations have shown that 2,000 years ago, green coffee seeds were crushed, mixed with fat and dried. Maybe the first-ever energy bars were made of coffee?

Plakat Kaffeepflanze The first written record mentioning coffee dates back to the 11th century. The Arab physician Ibn Sina – perhaps better known as Avicenna – mentions it as a remedy.

But it’s a long way from medicinal substance to today's luxury beverage, because only roasting teases out the many aromas in coffee, and it’s those aromas that make the smell and taste so unique.

Take a look at the items set out on the Oriental rug. These are various utensils you would need to roast coffee: a pan with a spoon, a mortar for crushing, pots and kettles for water. But as to how the art of roasting was discovered – we can only speculate.

One legend tells of a tree that was struck by lightning, and as it went up in flames, it was said to have given off a delightful smell.

But there’s also a story about clerics who regarded the green seeds as "stuff of the devil" – so they flung them into the fire and discovered the smell of the charred beans.

Or perhaps people were simply sitting around the fire, eating the sweet, ripe fruit and spitting the pips into the flames – at which point they suddenly smelled the unmistakable aroma of roasted coffee.

In Ethiopia, they still eat the fruit of the coffee bush and make tea from its leaves – just as they did 2,000 years ago.