Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) there lived a young goatherd named Kaldi. Every day Kaldi would set his goats to grazing in the hills that surrounded his village, and every evening his loyal goats would return home.
One evening, Kaldi's goats did not return home.
The young man searched for his herd all through the night, and as morning broke he found them, leaping and dancing with reckless abandon and apparent glee round a stand of shiny, dark-leafed shrubs with bright red berries. Kaldi took in the scene before him, amazed. He soon decided it must be the berries that caused such reckless behavior in his otherwise responsible goats, and so he sampled the berries himself. In no time, he too was dancing gleefully with his goats around the green-leafed shrubs.
Soon, we are told, a wise and learned monk or imam came along, trudging sleepily on his way to prayer. The imam rubbed his eyes and took in the scene before him - Kaldi and his goats - dancing gleefully about a stand of shiny, dark-leafed shrubs with bright red berries. Being both a curious and learned man, he gathered some of these berries, himself, and on returning home he studied them. In his experiments with the bright red berries, he roasted them, boiled them and sampled the resulting beverage. He shared what he found with the rest of his fellow monks, and soon none fell asleep at prayers! And so coffee spread from place to place creating a more gleeful and wakeful world.
Whatever the true story.....(
