Why coffee?

Coffee has quite the history with its origins dating back to the 10th century in Ethiopia - and possibility even earlier with a number of reports and legends surrounding its discovery.
What legends you might ask?
There’s the one about goat herder Kaldi who is said to have discovered coffee after he noticed that after eating the berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night. From there he reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayer – and word spread from there.
Another account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili. Who, while traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, observed birds of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the birds had been eating, experienced the same vitality.
… and that’s just two of them!

However the earliest substantiated evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the 15th century in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. By the 16th century it had reached the rest of the Middle East, South India, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa, further spreading to the Balkans, Italy and the rest of Europe, South East Asia and then to America. The rest of the world continued to follow.

But have you ever wondered why people drink coffee?

According to the National Coffee Association (NCA) 2016 National Coffee Drink Trends people associate drink coffee for all sorts of reason – needing to wake up, warm up, boost their energy, treat themselves, relax, focus.. the list goes on!

After first asking the ‘why’ in 2014, the NCA has identified that despite coffee trends shifting in terms of what and how people consume coffee, the reasons for consumption have not changed.

Based on their research, here’s the percentage of people who often or sometimes drink coffee based on the below reason:

78%     To wake up
74%     To warm up
66%     For an energy boost
60%     For a treat
60%     For energy that lasts for some time
59%     For a relaxing moment
58%     To focus
56%     For a break during the day
54%     For a moment to myself
43%     To help pass the time
43%     For something refreshing
29%     To quench thirst
27%     For an antioxidant boost
27%     To cool down
25%     For a healthy drink

So we’d love to know, why do you drink coffee?