The romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on the writers of today—Coffee quips and anecdotes
Any study of the literature of coffee comprehends a survey of selections from the best thought of civilized nations, from the time of Rhazes (850–922) to Francis Saltus. We have seen in chapter III how Rhazes, the physician-philosopher, appears to have been the first writer to mention coffee; and was followed by other great physicians, like Bengiazlah, a contemporary, and Avicenna (980–1037).
Then arose many legends about coffee, that served as inspiration for Arabian, French, Italian, and English poets.
Sheik Gemaleddin, mufti of Mocha, is said to have discovered the virtues of coffee about 1454, and to have promoted the use of the drink in Arabia. Knowledge of the new beverage was given to Europeans by the botanists Rauwolf and Alpini toward the close of the sixteenth century.
The first authentic account of the origin of coffee was written by Abd-al-Kâdir in 1587. It is the famous Arabian manuscript commending the use of coffee, preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, and catalogued as "Arabe, 4590."
Its title written in Arabic is as follows:
which is pronounced (reading right to left):
or; in the literary style: omdatu s safwati fi hallu 'l kahwati which means—literally, (the corresponding words being underlined and numbered)