In Praise of Coffee (Translation from the Arabic) O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all cares, thou art the object of desire to the scholar. This is the beverage of the friends of God; it gives health to those in its service who strive after wisdom. Prepared from the simple shell of the berry, it has the odor of musk and the color of ink. The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth. May God deprive of this drink the foolish man who condemns it with incurable obstinacy. Coffee is our gold. Wherever it is served, one enjoys the society of the noblest and most generous men. O drink! As harmless as pure milk, which differs from it only in its blackness.
Coffee Companionship (Translation from the Arabic) Come and enjoy the company of coffee in the places of its habitation...There the elegance of the rugs, the sweetness of life, the society of the guests, all give a picture of the abode of the blest. It is a wine which no sorrow could resist when the cup-bearer presents thee with the cup which contains it...Grief is not found within its habitations. Trouble yields humbly to its power. It is the beverage of the children of God, it is the source of health. It is the stream in which we wash away our sorrows. It is the fire which consumes our griefs...Delicious beverage, its color is the seal of its purity. Reason pronounces favorably on the lawfulness of it. Drink of it confidently, and give not ear to the speech of the foolish, who condemn it without reason.
“They sit at their meat (which is served to them upon the ground) as Tailers sit upon their stalls, crosse-legd; for the most part, passing the day in banqueting and carowsing, untill they surfet, drinking a certaine liquor, which they do call Coffe, which is made of seede much like mustard seede, which will soone intoxicate the braine like our Metheglin." –William Parry, 1601
“Muhammad chiefly prohibited, in his Qur’an, the eating of swine’s flesh and the drinking of wine; which indeed the best sort do. But the based kind are daily drunkards. Their common drink is sherbert, composed of water, honey, and sugar –which is exceedingly delectable in the taste. And the usual courtesy they bestow on their friends who visit them is a cup of coffee, made of a seed called coava, and [is] of a blackish colour; which they drink so hot as possibly they can, and is good to expel the crudities of raw meats and herbs, so much by them frequented. And those who cannot attain to this liquor must be content with the cooling streams of water." –William Lithgow, 1632
“They have another drink...called coffee, made from a berry as big as a small bean, dried in a furnace, and beaten to powder, of a sooty colour, in taste a little bitterish, which they seeth, and drink [as] hot as may be endured. It is good [at] all hours of the day, but especially morning and evening when they entertain themselves [for] 2 or 3 hours in coffee-houses which, in all Turkey, abound more than inns and ale-houses [do] with us. It is thought to be the old black broth so much used by the Lacedemonians; and dried all tumours in the stomach, comforts the brain, and never causes drunkenness, or any surfeit...For there, upon scaffolds half a foot high, and covered with mats, they sit—cross-legged, after the Turkish manner –many times two or three hundred together, talking; and likely with some poor music passing up and down." –Sir Henry Blount, 1636
“Here are coffee-houses, which are also much restored to; especially in the evening. The coffee…is a black drink (or rather, broth) [which] they sip as hot as their mouth can well suffer, out of small China cups. It is made of the flower of bunny or coava-berry, steeped and well boiled in water; much drunk –though it pleases neither the eye nor the taste, being black and somewhat bitter (or rather, relished like burnt crists); more wholesome than toothsome. Yet it comforts raw stomachs, helps digestion, expels wind, and dispels drowsiness; but of the greatest repute from a tradition they have, that it was prepared by Gabriel as a cordial for Muslims." –Thomas Herbert in 1677
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Parry, W. (1601). A new and large discourse of the trauels of sir Anthony Sherley Knight, by sea, and ouer land, to the Persian Empire..., London: Printed by Valentine Simmes for Felix Norton.