Long before air roasting, percolators, espresso machines, long before names like Kona, Mocha and Java, there was only a red fruit. That the bean inside this fruit should steal the glory is quite an accident.

During the 1st Century, hungry and attracted by the brightly colored cherry, the goats of an Ethiopian farmer discovered the bean and subsequently discovered its effects. The farmer took notice, then took some beans of his own.

The bean became cultivated on plantations and was finally made into a drink - qahwa, that which prevents sleep - shortly thereafter. A delicacy and a secret, coffee was originally exclusive to the plantations of Muslim nations until it was smuggled to India, Western Europe and eventually the New World where it took root in Latin and South America with a vengeance.

In fact, the Dutch, early traders and cultivators of coffee, unwittingly provided the Americas with the coffee plant that accounted for the entire Western coffee industry and 90 percent of the world's coffee. This coffee bush was a gift to Louis XIV of France; the culprit/genius was naval officer Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu who stole a seedling from the bush and transported it to the French-occupied Caribbean island of Martinique.

Baptized for Christian consumption by Pope Clement VIII, who said, "Coffee is so delicious, it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it." Enough justification for a sultan to execute the governor of Mecca who tried to ban it. The subject of an ode composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. Prohibition's godsend.

Coffee. A devilish little bean worth its weight in gold.