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The Coffee Connection

People of Oman were among the first in the world to brew and drink a cup of coffee. Hundreds of years ago, they chanced on the bean in the course of their globe-trotting and immediately recognised the potential of the commodity.

Merchants of Oman traded the bean, introduced it to markets in different continents and contributed to its popularity. They also brought it home and as a complement to hospitality served it to visitors. The ancient coffee connection became a part of Omani social culture. It endures and holds its own even in the face of all the competition from multi-coloured beverages.

Coffee has a close association with the Arab world. The messengers of Islam took the coffee bean with them on their travels to spread the faith and introduced it to different communities. The earliest records of coffee speak of the discovery of the bean around 800 AD by a shepherd in a village named Kaffa, in Ethiopia. It is inferred that the name kahwa and coffee were possibly linked to the name of this place.

From Ethiopia it travelled across the Red Sea and was introduced to Yemen. By 1000 AD Muslims were roasting the beans and sipping the brew and doing everything in their power to keep the property rights of the little berry within the region.

During these early years, Oman played a key role in trading and transporting the coffee. From its base on the Red Sea port of Mokha (Al Makha, Mocha) Omani ships bought the beans and carried the cargo out of the Red Sea, up the home coast and through the Arabian Gulf to Basra, Baghdad, Damascus and beyond. Omani seafarers also carried coffee with them on their voyages to India. By 1517 coffee had arrived in Europe. Coffee was well received wherever it went and today it has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world.

The coffee trade from Yemen was established in the 1400s and expanded under the Ottoman rule. Historical records of Oman's role in the coffee trade surface from the early years of the 16th century when competition was rife. The Portuguese were quick to realise the value of coffee and entered the fray in 1507. They were followed by the British, French and the Dutch all keen on a piece of the coffee pie. By 1620, both the Dutch and the English had their own factories at Mukha.

The coffee bean itself was zealously guarded. Before shipping, the beans were made infertile by boiling or parching and no seed left Arabia or Africa till the early years of the 17th century. Omani traders understood the properties of the bean. They realised that unroasted beans retained its profile for many months if it was properly protected.

This property of the bean was ideal for the Omani trading trips that relied on the south-west and north-east winds and took three to six months to complete a voyage. To this day, purists in Oman roast the beans only as and when required and in small quantities to ensure optimum flavour. Even the best of modern storage fails to protect the aroma of the roasted bean and grinds beyond a few days.

Oman's coffee trade was vital to the country and the livelihood of the people. To preserve the business they had to employ every martial and management manoeuvre then known to man. As the risks increased, Omani merchants armed their vessels to the teeth and worked on the theory of safety in numbers.

The Omani coffee fleet came into being and vessels travelled together in large convoys secure in the knowledge that rogue marauders would think twice before attacking a convoy. The coffee corridor of that time is comparable to the critical route taken by oil tankers today down the Arab Gulf and into the open sea along the coast of Oman.

Every year in time for the season, the convoy of Omani vessels went to Mukha to pick up the fresh crop meant for Basra and the markets beyond. Every voyage was an adventure from start to finish. If it was not the Dutch or the Portuguese, it was the Chieftains of Kharg Island and several other bandits who eyed the rich cargo.

There was cream for Oman's coffee trade after the Portuguese were ousted from Bassein on the west coast of India in 1737. The coffee trade in nearby Surat also passed to the Omani merchants and for once their ships sailed without harassment. For a few years Sur served as the base for the trade and the supply point for boats and crews.

The Omani coffee traders had to factor in several other elements to ensure a profitable season. The annual journey included trading stopovers at several places en route. The coffee convoy had to schedule their arrival at the Red Sea port just in time to pick up the best of the crop at sustainable prices.

The commodity exhibited its volatility even in those early days of the trade. Prices would go up in Mukha each time a European vessel was in port. Europeans were also offered preferential tariffs lower than that offered to the Arabs and Turks.

Oman's prowess in the trade and the safety of the coffee convoy brought in additional business. The East India Company had a selfish interest in the safety and security of Oman's coffee fleet. The mutasallim at Basra had an arrangement with the British Resident whereby a part of the import duties on coffee was to be paid to the British for a debt owed by the Pasha of Baghdad.

The Company had greater operating expenses and realised it was far more economical to outsource the job to the Omani ships to carry the coffee from Mokha to Basra. Carsten Niebuhr writing in 1765 said that the safest way to travel in the Gulf region was to join the convoy of Omani vessels that carried coffee, or to board those Omani vessels that sailed between India and the Gulf.

The coffee merchants at Muhka insisted on cash payments and Omani traders paid for the coffee in the currency of the time, mahmudi. Indian and Persian goods which were sold by the Omani merchants at Yemen were bought with European coins. The coffee convoys helped increase the general trade that the Omani merchants of the time conducted.

The rice and cloth procured in India was traded in Yemen and Persia. Batavian goods purchased in Cochin in exchange for coffee was carried back to Yemen and Basra. It was indeed a life of adventure and a time of prosperity and plenty for the Omani merchants.

By 1730, the Dutch had managed to smuggle coffee seeds and saplings out of Yemen to cultivate in their colonies in Java. European colonial plantations in the east and west challenged the monopoly market.

Oman held the coffee trade well into the 18th and early 19th century. Around 1780 during the era of Ahmad bin Said, the trade grew even more thanks to the establishment of a naval fleet which ensured sovereignty over the Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the East Coast of Africa and provided security for trade and commerce. Oman also adopted new designs for its sea going vessels and increased the size of their ships to enable them to carry more cargo.

The coffee equations changed rapidly as every country with the required soil conditions, climate and rainfall started giant coffee plantations. The development of tropical plantation economies decreased the importance of Yemen, Ethiopia and the East Coast of Africa as growing bases.

Oman continued to carry the coffee from the east coast of Africa to Basra even after steam ships were introduced. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the debut of steam ships, Omani traders were compelled to put coffee on the back burner and look at other options.

Only time will tell whether Oman's Salalah Port will rekindle the trade and become a point for transhipment of coffee. Some of the largest producers of coffee in the region like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi are just around the corner.

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Coffee is a safe concoction
By Viju James

IT was natural for the man who managed the coffee trade year after year, to bring the commodity back to his home as well. The coffee culture took hold in Oman over five hundred years ago and became a part of community life. The absence of sophisticated grinders and filters to brew the beans was compensated with a ritual that emphasised grace and hospitality. The piping hot cardamom flavoured kahwa was also the perfect partner for the sweet saffron flavoured halwa. The two became inseparable.

Coffee traditions in the home have been orally conveyed from generation to generation and are still held sacred. As a child, Saleh Abdullah al Khamyasi of Sur recalls being taught to serve coffee to visitors. With the pot held firmly in the left hand and the cup in the right, great care was taken to see that the hot brew was poured to fill just two third of the kahwa cup. This precaution was adopted to avoid accidental spilling of the hot liquid over the clothes of the guest.

As a child, he was also taught to persuade the guest to take a little more coffee even after the guest had signalled with a quick twist of the cup that he had had enough. Among the elders to this day, no serious conversation starts till the cups have been cleared. A few concessions to modernity have crept into the old rituals and today the coffee is kept in heat retaining vacuum flasks of elaborate design.

The current coffee scene in the Sultanate is best explained by those at the trading and retail ends of the business. "We import both arabica and robusta beans from India, Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Philippines and sometimes even from Brazil" says the spokesperson of one of the leading importers of coffee beans.

The prevailing price of the bean plays a crucial role in determining the sourcing. Some regions have been able to build in premiums for their crop. Produce from Costa Rica costs nearly twice as much as the Indian beans. There are some importers who source their beans from land-locked Burundi and others who import from far away Brazil. The sibling feuds between arabica and robusta and their various strains are as old as the bean itself.

Robusta plants possesses greater strength and resistance to disease than arabica and adjust to humid climates to which arabica is not suited. Robusta beans are also more neutral in taste and less aromatic. Seventy per cent of the world production is arabica. The world coffee trade is best known for its long spells of low prices and short periods of high prices. Falling coffee prices mean crisis for farmers in South America, Mexico and several other growing areas. Farmers rush to plant when prices are high and then have no option but to use the bush as fuel when there is no off take. Fifty countries of the world export coffee and over 30 million people all over the world
depend on it for their livelihood. Brazilian frost, the El Nino and climate change have terrifying effects on the market price of the commodity.

Serge Van der Berge of Abu Nibras Trading and Glacier Café has watched the coffee drinking trends in Muscat for nearly seven years. "People are very aware of the different blends from other countries like Columbia and Mexico and the are familiar with varieties like Jamaican Blue Mountain, Bourbon and Java. Customers are choosy and the drink is not standard anymore. They choose between latte, espresso, mokha and cappuccino. They try different blends from the very bitter to the very sweet and then hone in and stick with one that they like the best. They like it strong Turkish style and the preference is for espresso rather than cappuccino or mokha." The café has a selection of blends and claims to use only arabica beans because it is smooth and not too bitter.

Quality of coffee at each of the growing centres varies from year to year depending on various factors. The arabica from Brazil is not the same as the one from Venezuela and the 2002 crop of each area may be completely different from the crop of the previous year. "Coffee drinkers like the sting in coffee and there is very little demand for the decaffeinated blends" says Serge Van der Berge. The amount of caffeine in a cup varies depending on variety, location, the grind and several other factors. In general, arabica blends tend to have less caffeine than robusta beans.

The cycle of trade no longer takes an entire season. The world's first Internet coffee auction was held in Brazil in 1999. The advent of the web gives new hope to co-operatives of farmers in remote regions to get better prices, quick returns and avoid the middlemen in the trade. It will also bring into the limelight quality beans that never had a chance because people had never seen the place on the map.

With nearly 110 million daily coffee drinkers, the National Coffee Association of the US keeps a close watch on American coffee consumers and trends in the coffee trade. From their watchtowers they inform that men drink as much coffee as women and 35 per cent drink the brew black while the rest add a sweetener. This Association has also monitored the effects of coffee consumption on health in general and in relation to specific diseases. Coffee lovers have cause to cheer when they know that a study of more
than 45,000 men found no link between coffee, caffeine and cardio-vascular disease for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day. They have also found that caffeine consumption is safe for all women.

They sign off saying that decades of research and centuries of human consumption confirm the safety of coffee and caffeine. More than 19,000 scientific studies have been conducted to date of coffee or caffeine and the US Food and Drug Administration still considers caffeine to be "generally recognised as safe" With that endorsement all that one needs to worry about is that life is too short to drink bad coffee.

Talleyrand the French statesman was right on when he wrote up the specifications for the perfect cup: " Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love"

Oman Observer 1st July 2002