Excerpt from UTNE READER, Nov/Dec 94, by Mark Schapiro, "Muddy Waters"

Prior to 1000 A.D.: Members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia notice that they get an energy
boost when they eat a certain berry, ground up and mixed with animal fat.

1000 A.D.: Arab traders bring coffee back to their homeland and cultivate the plant for the
first time on plantations. They also began to boil the beans, creating a drink they call "qahwa"
(literally, that which prevents sleep).

1453: Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by Ottoman Turks. The world's first coffee shop,
Kiva Han, open there in 1475. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband
if he fail to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.

1511: Khair Beg, the corrupt governor of Mecca, tries to ban coffee for feat that its influence
might foster opposition to his rule. The sultan sends word that coffee is sacred and has the
governor executed.

1600: Coffee, introduced to the West by Italian traders, grabs attention in high places. In Italy,
Pope Clement VIII is urged by his advisers to consider that favorite drink of the Ottoman Empire
part of the infidel threat. However, he decides to "baptize" it instead, making it an acceptable
Christian beverage.

1607: Captain John Smith helps to found the colony of Virginia at Jamestown. It's believed that
he introduced coffee to North America.

1645: First coffeehouse opens in Italy.

1652: First coffeehouse opens in England. Coffee houses multiply and become such popular
forums for learned and not so learned - discussion that they are dubbed "penny universities"
(a penny being the price of a cup of coffee).

1668: Coffee replaces beer as New York's City's favorite breakfast drink.

1668: Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse opens in England and is frequented by merchants and
maritime insurance agents. Eventually it becomes Lloyd's of London, the best-known insurance
company in the world.

1672: First coffeehouse opens in Paris.

1675: The Turkish Army surrounds Vienna. Franz Georg Kolschitzky, a Viennese who had
lived in Turkey, slips through the enemy lines to lead relief forces to the city. The fleeing Turks
leave behind sacks of "dry black fodder" that Kolschitzky recognizes as coffee. He claims it as
his reward and opens central Europe's first coffee house. He also establishes the habit of
refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk.

1690: With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha, the Dutch become the
first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon and in their East Indian colony
- Java, source of the brew's nickname.

1713: The Dutch unwittingly provide Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose
descendants will produce entire Western coffee industry when in 1723 French naval officer
Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu steals a seedling and transports it to Martinique. Within 50 years
and official survey records 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually, 90 percent
of the world's coffee spreads from this plant.

1721: First coffee house opens in Berlin.

1727: The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start when Lieutenant colonel Francisco de
Melo Palheta is sent by government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and
the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only does he settle the dispute, but also strikes up a
secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana's governor. Although France guarded its
New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said
good-bye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee.

1732: Johann Sevastian Bach composes his Kaffee-Kantate. Partly an ode to coffee
and partly a stab at the movement in Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee
(it was thought to make them sterile), the cantata includes the aria, "Ah! How sweet
coffee taste! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must
have my coffee."

1773: The Boston Tea Party makes drinking coffee a patriotic duty in America.

1775: Prussia's Frederick the Great tries to block inports of green coffee, as Prussia's
wealth is drained. Public outcry changes his mind.

1886: Former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend
"Maxwell House," after the hotel in Nashville, TN where it's served.

Early 1900's: In Germany, afternoon coffee becomes a standard occasion. The
derogatory term "KaffeeKlatsch" is coined to describe women's gossip at these affairs.
Since broadened to mean relaxed conversation in general.

1900: Hills Bros. begins packing roast coffee in vacuum tins, spelling the end of the
ubiquitous local roasting shops and coffee mills.

1901: The first soluble "instant" coffee is invented by Japanese-American chemist Satori
Kato of Chicago.

1903: German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turn a batch of ruined coffee beans
over to researchers, who perfect the process of removing caffeine from the beans without
destroying the flavor. He markets it under the brand name "Sanka." Sanka is introduced
to the United States in 1923.

1906: George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, notices a
powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation,
he creates the first mass-produced instant coffee (his brand is called Red E Coffee).

1907: In less than a century Brazil accounted for 97% of the world's harvest.

1920: Prohibition goes into effect in United States. Coffee sales boom.

1938: Having been asked by Brazil to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses,
Nestle company invents freeze-dried coffee. Nestle develops Nescafe and introduces
it in Switzerland.

1940: The US imports 70 percent of the world coffee crop.

1942: During W.W.II, American soldiers are issued instant Maxwell House coffee
in their ration kits. Back home, widespread hoarding leads to coffee rationing.

1946: In Italy, Achilles Gaggia perfects his espresso machine. Cappuccino is named for
the resemblance of its color to the robes of the monks of the Capuchin order.

1969: One week before Woodstock the Manson Family murders coffee heiress Abigail
Folger as she visits with friend Sharon Tate in the home of filmmaker Roman Polanski.

1971: Starbucks opens its first store in Seattle's Pike Place public market, creating a f
renzy over fresh-roasted whole bean coffee.

1979: Mr Cappuccino opens for business!

2004- Island Joes Gourmet Coffee Roating Compay is born with the first commerical r
oast being at a gas station in the Florida Key.  IJS was founded by a dad, two sons
and a daughter.

2006 - Island Joes Coffee Company becomes highest rated coffee roasters in the
state of Florida.