Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 - (Page 46)

L EGEND SAYS THAT A GOATHERD, INTRIGUED by the antics of his goats after they ate coffee beans, brewed some and became the first person to drink coffee. Coffee probably originated in Ethiopia and was heard of in Abyssinia by the 15th century where it became all the rage. It was prohibited by religious leaders who regarded it as an intoxicant, but its popularity spread reaching Europe by the 17th century. Coffeehouses sprang up from Vienna, on the border of the Ottoman Empire, to London where Edward Lloyd’s Coffeehouse became the meeting place for a group of marine insurance underwriters that grew into Lloyd’s of London. Coffee was initially acquired from Yemen until the late 1600s, but soon coffee beans were being taken — or smuggled — to other lands between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The Portuguese grew coffee in Ceylon, while the Dutch grew it in Java starting in the 17th century. In the 18th century coffee was introduced in the New World in such places as Hispaniola, Martinique, Surinam, Brazil, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Mexico and Columbia. These were followed in the 19th century by El Salvador and the Hawaiian Islands. It is little wonder that New Orleans with its French and Spanish founders — and their taste for coffee — and its proximity to Latin America became one of the greatest coffee posts on earth. Early on the city became a leading coffee importer serving a wide region, since Florida and Texas — now major competitors — were mainly undeveloped. Before the mid 19th century New Orleans got its coffee from the West Indies through Havana. By the 1850s Brazil was the world’s leading coffee grower, and would provide more than half of New Orleans’ coffee imports. Brazilian coffee trade statistics show the fluctuations of 19th century coffee trade in New Orleans. In 1856 New York handled 85 million pounds of Brazil’s coffee, while New Orleans ranked an impressive second importing more than 62 million pounds. Other Gulf Coast ports combined handled only a little over 2 million pounds. The Civil War and Union blockade of the Mississippi River shut down the port of New Orleans, and Brazilian coffee imports dropped to slightly more than 18 million pounds in 1861, the first year of hostilities, while in 1862, the year the city fell to Union forces, the figure dropped to zero. The next year’s import stood at 423,000 pounds, but in 1864 dropped to a bare 14,700 pounds. WITH THE END OF THE WAR IN 1865, IMPORTS 46 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2005 increased so that in 1866 Brazilian coffee imports grew to more than 7 million pounds and then to more than 12 million in 1867, but did not reach pre-war levels for years. In 1882 only 30 million pounds reached New Orleans; New York handled more than 11 times that. Brazilian officials were concerned about the poor showing of New Orleans, since the city was considered the best port for coffee. At the 1884-85 World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, the world’s fair held in Audubon Park, Brazil exhibited its coffees, “in the city which is the natural port of the immense Valley of the Mississippi, where Brazil coffee finds its chief consumption, and which, consequently, should be the natural port of distribution ” In the late 19th-century, the United States ranked fourth in per capita coffee consumption (8.27 pounds) after the Netherlands (17.0 pounds), Belgium (9.13 pounds) and Norway (8.73). The population along the Mississippi River consumed three-quarters of all American coffee — 15 pounds per person, second to the Netherlands. In the northern portion of the region coffee came from the port of New York then sent to Midwestern cities by rail. This was more costly than sending up the Mississippi via New Orleans.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 Contents Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Louisiana State Museum After Katrina and Rita Tabasco: Edmund McIlhenny and the Birth of a Louisiana Pepper Sauce Historic New Orleans Collection Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans’ Coffee Connection No Man’s Land Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism Bookstand (Book Review by Thomas Uskali) Sound Advice (Music Review by Ben Sandmel) Forum (Commentary by Roy Blount, Jr. )

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

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