Trekkychick

March 3rd, 2008 - Written by Troi in ramblings

An addict often wonders about the origins of the substance or drug of addiction. An addict thinks to oneself, “When I learn to time travel, if I go back in time and abolish the creation of my addictive substance, and then travel back to the future, also known as the present, I will not have to worry about my addiction.”** (**Not all addicts are created equal; not all addicts believe in time travel or attempted it as a child in their garage while playing with their dad’s circuits and wires. Um….neither did I, I never did that either. That would be ridiculous. Everyone knows that in order to successfully time travel they must enlist the help of a responsible knowledgeable assistant, like Michael J. Fox.)

So as a responsible addict, I decided today to research the history of my addiction. It is called coffee. You may not have heard of coffee, and if you haven’t, don’t worry, it probably just means you’re dead. It turns out that it was a shepherd who discovered coffee. This shepherd was attending to his daily recreational activity of watching goats, and he noticed that after eating some red berries from a nearby bush, the goats perked up considerably. The goats suddenly became more productive, even going so far as to milk themselves and shear their own wool for the shepherd’s use. Upon witnessing the ultra-awake goats, the shepherd also attempted to consume the raw berries, but as they were difficult to chew, he took them back into his village and roasted them. As he shared the beans with the other village people, the shepherd had never felt so popular and desired, and he was invited to so many social events (Digging Dirt Night, etc.) that he eventually had to cut back on his favorite recreational activity of watching goats. People eventually tried grinding the roasted beans and adding them to water to make a drink, and were pleased with the results.

Of course, no history would be complete without the influence of the Catholic Church. Coffee was first brought to Italy, and Pope Clementine VIII was so delighted by the beverage that he baptized coffee and pronounced it a Christian beverage. Coffee was much relieved after its baptism, as it was very pleased to know that it would be safely entering the pearly gates of Heaven. Coffee houses soon began to crop up in various areas, including Venice, London, and Paris, and coffee became a staple beverage around which many social and political discussions and activities were arranged.

We finally celebrated the arrival of coffee in America around the early 1600’s (and by “we” I mean the collective “we,” the Borg “we,” which doesn’t include “me” as I wasn’t yet alive). By the mid- to late- 1600s coffee had replaced beer as New York’s most popular breakfast drink, a fact that many of my fellow college students bemoan to this day. I, however, am thankful for coffee’s arrival, and I now also thank the shepherd (and the goat) who discovered it.

(Please, be smart about your coffee buying habits.)
www.oxfamamerica.org/advocacy/art1582.html

–Troi out