除了超級英雄，咖啡是如何改變了世界呢！

大約是在一千多年前，衣索比亞的山野間，一隻閑逛的山羊發現了咖啡。時至今日，咖啡成為重要產業，從肯亞田間的種植工人到人們周圍的星巴克咖啡館，全球相關從業人員超過十二億五千萬人。每天早晨從喝一杯美味的咖啡開始，成了各大洲很多人最常見的生活方式。

雖然我們現在一提到咖啡就覺得它是個很歐美的東西，但其實咖啡並不是產自歐洲或者美國的，它起源於東非的衣索比亞一帶。

Buzzed goats make important discovery

山間漫遊的山羊發現了咖啡

It is only fitting that the history of a beverage so associated with good conversation starts with a storybook-like tale. Native only to parts of subtropical Africa, the stimulating effects of wild coffee beans are said to have been first discovered in about A.D. 800 by an Ethiopian shepherd named Kaldi, whose goats kept him up at nights after feasting on red coffee berries.

這種能讓人清醒交談的飲料以一個美好的童話故事來開始敘說是很合適的。在部分亞熱帶非洲地區，當地人也表示野生咖啡豆最開始是約在公元800年時，由一個叫Kaldi的衣索比亞牧羊人發現的，因為在給他的山羊餵了紅色咖啡漿果後，山羊夜裡一直吵鬧讓牧羊人無法入睡。

The shepherd shared his find with the abbott at a local monastery, where monks first brewed the beans into a hot drink, reveling in the way it kept them awake during long hours of prayer.

牧羊人把他的發現告訴了當地寺廟裡的abbott，也是寺廟裡的和尚首次將咖啡豆煮成熱飲，結果發現喝下後能讓禱告的和尚們保持長時間的清醒。

Romantic exaggeration or not, by A.D. 1000 the bean with a buzz was a favorite among those needing a boost in East Africa as well as across the Red Sea in Yemen, where the crop had migrated over with slaves.

不管是否是一個誇張浪漫的故事，到公元1000年，這種咖啡豆在東非大受歡迎，並且這一農作物一路隨奴隸們移植到了葉門紅海地區。

If Ethiopia was the birthplace of coffee, Yemen was where it grew up. The brew first took hold among clerics there too, but spillover into the secular crowd didn"t take long and skyrocketing demand soon led to the world"s first cultivated coffee fields there in the 1300s. The entire Arabian peninsula became a hotbed of coffeehouse culture, with cafés – called kaveh kanes – on every corner.

如果衣索比亞是咖啡的出生地，葉門就是咖啡的成長區。 烹煮咖啡也是首先拿下了當地傳教士們，但是隨後不久就蔓延到了普通世俗百姓中，併火速上升的需求量在14世紀催生了當地首次人工種植培育咖啡。至此，整個阿拉伯半島成為了咖啡館文化的熱土，各個大街小巷都能看到被稱之為kaveh kanes的咖啡館。

By the 15th-century, Mecca resembled a medieval incarnation of Seattle, men sipping steaming mugs over games of chess and political conversations. Coffee houses were such an important place to gather and discuss that they were often called Schools of the Wise.

到了15世紀，麥加就像中世紀的西雅圖，人們在遊戲及政治討論的時候不時會啜飲馬克杯里冒著熱氣的咖啡。咖啡館成了一個聚集大家和共同討論各類話題的重要場所，因此也被稱之為智者學堂。

Coffee had much the same effect in Europe when it was introduced there in the 1600s. Cafés were the center of social life, where people with similar interests could gather and talk. The British insurance company, Lloyd"s of London, began as a café popular with sailors who often discussed insurance matters.

在17世紀咖啡進入歐洲後，也出現了類似的效果。 咖啡成為了社交生活的中心，有共同興趣的人們會聚集在一起高談闊論。英國保險公司，倫敦勞埃德，開始成為一個水手們的咖啡館，他們經常聚集在一起討論保險事務。

而在資產階級革命之後的英國，倫敦的咖啡廳簡直成了英國政治的風向標，人們聚在這裡針砭時弊、慷慨激昂，後來國王一度想封掉這種不安定場所，卻被洶湧的民意壓了下去，於是咖啡廳又從此成了言論自由的象徵。

咖啡廳(café)作為當時的人交流思想、談論時政的場所，也成為學者彙集的風雲之地，法國的思想家狄德羅就是在巴黎的一家咖啡館完成了他的《百科全書》。17世紀之後的歐洲似乎徹底從淡啤酒和紅酒的微醺中清醒過來，人們的工作的質量和產量都得到了提高。

Caffeine becomes a cash crop

咖啡因成為了掙錢的作物

Arabia controlled the lucrative coffee industry for several centuries, exporting only roasted, infertile beans to their new trading partners in Europe and Asia. Caffeine junkies the world over were hooked, but couldn"t grow their own crops or buy beans at reasonable prices.

阿拉伯半島在幾個世紀里一直控制著咖啡這項有利可圖的產業，只出口烤熟的，無法播種的咖啡豆給他們歐洲及亞洲的貿易夥伴。咖啡因讓全世界都上癮了，但世界其他地區人們卻無法自己種植咖啡或者以合理的價格購買咖啡。

It took one intrepid Mecca pilgrim to break the Arab monopoly, according to legend, by smuggling some intact beans back to his native India, initiating an agricultural explosion. The Dutch also managed to get one plant back to Amsterdam and began cultivating in their Southeast Asian colonies in the 17th century. Europe now had a new, direct source for its daily coffee fix.

據傳說，一位勇敢的麥加朝聖者打破了阿拉伯世界對咖啡的壟斷。 偷偷帶走了一些未受損的咖啡豆回到了印度，由此開始了一個咖啡農業的大爆發。 荷蘭人也試圖帶回了一棵咖啡回阿姆斯特丹，17世紀時開始在他們東南亞的殖民地培育種植，至此歐洲才開始有了直接的貨源來滿足每日的咖啡需求。

Coffee plants went everywhere that European empires did, taking root in such famous bean-growing regions as Jamaica"s Blue Mountains, the Kona district of Hawaii, Indonesia"s Java Island and the rainforests of Brazil, which remains the world"s biggest producer.

歐洲帝國所到之處就會讓咖啡種植在當地落地生根，比如著名的咖啡生長區域牙買加的藍山，夏威夷的考拿區，印度尼西亞的爪哇島以及巴西的熱帶雨林，這些地方依然是世界上最大的咖啡生產區域。

咖啡這種提神醒腦的飲品，被認為是繼石油之後，世界上第二重要的商品，從開遍全球的知名意式咖啡連鎖店星巴克來看，這一說法毫不誇張，數萬家咖啡館，年收益數百億美元，說他是咖啡店，不如說他是印鈔機！

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