Jesuit 17th Century Missionary And The First Coffee Shop

Ordering a cup, or glass, of coffee in Spain can be quite a complicated process. The first Spaniard to ever drink a cup of coffee, was according to the Spanish Coffee Federation, the FEC, Pedro Paez, a Jesuit missionary who was enslaved and held captive in what is now Ethiopia at the beginning of the 17th century. He later became the first European to visit the source of the Blue Nile, with the tale of his life later recounted in a book published in 2001 by the renowned journalist and novelist, Javier Reverte, entitled ‘God, the devil and adventure.’ Paez wrote a lengthy account of Ethiopia, published in 1620 and later reissued in a new edition in 1945, both in Portuguese: ‘História da Etiópia,’ He speaks in the text of a dark-coloured, bitter-infusion which he tasted during his time in Africa.It was not until around the mid-18th century, however, that coffee was introduced to Spain, brought here under the Borbon dynasty. The first ever café in Spain – or coffee shop - was opened in Madrid by Italian businessmen, the Hermanos Gippini, in 1764: la Fonda de San Sebastián on Calle Atocha.Others soon followed, with this new beverage then becoming popular in other major cities in Spain. Cafés sprung up in Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, La Coruña and Cartagena in the southeast, and were relatively widespread by the end of the century.There are two main methods of toasting the coffee beans: ‘tostado natural,’ whose name speaks for itself, and, the variety which is reportedly sold almost exclusively to Spain and Portugal, ‘torrefacto,’ where sugar is added during the toasting process to produce a darker-coloured, stronger-tasting coffee bean.

Original article (here)