One of the best known legends regarding the discovery of coffee tells about an Ethiopian shepherd, who noticed that some of his goats changed behavior after eating leaves and berries of a thick bush.

From Etiopia, coffee was exported in Arabia, where the inhabitants consumed the entire fruit, a red berry that looks like a cherry. Then, they began to remove seeds, grounding and working them with animal fat, to obtain a mixture, which could be eaten as a sort of “physiological fuel” during the long journeys. Only in the year 1.000 green coffee beans were boiled in water to produce an aromatic drink; but it took another three centuries before Arab started with the coffee-roasting.

The popularity of coffee among the arab populations has a religious foundation: the Koran strictly prohibits the use of alcoholics, so Muslims consumed large quantities of coffee, and from here comes the legend of Muhammad, who, afflicted by sleeping sickness, receives from Archangel Gabriel a black drink, and after drinking it, he obtains the strength to win forty knights and lay with forty women.

Other news about the use of a substance, that can be identified as coffee, can be found in the Odyssey, in which Homer speaks about a drink called nepenthe, which was offered to Telemaco by Helen together with wine , even if is believed to be a drug obtained from opium.