As
demand for the beverage continued to spread, there was tense competition to
cultivate coffee outside of Arabia. Though the Arabs tried hard to maintain
their monopoly, the Dutch finally succeeded, in the latter half of the 17th
century, to obtain some seedlings. Their first attempts to plant them in India
failed but they were successful with their efforts in Batavia, on the island of
Java in what is now Indonesia. The plants thrived and soon the Dutch had
a productive and growing trade in coffee. They soon expanded the cultivation of
coffee trees to the islands of Sumatra and Celebes. The Dutch did a curious
thing, however. In 1714, the Mayor of Amsterdam presented a gift of a
young coffee plant to King Louis XIV of France. The King ordered it to be
planted in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. In 1723, a young naval officer,
Gabriel de Clieu obtained a seedling from the King's plant. Despite an arduous
voyage -- complete with horrendous weather, a saboteur who tried to destroy the
seedling and a pirate attack -- he managed to transport it safely to
Martinique. Once planted, the seedling thrived and is credited with the
spread of over 18 million coffee trees on the island of Martinique in the next
50 years. It was also the stock from which coffee trees throughout the
Caribbean, South and Central America originated. Coffee is said to have come to
Brazil in the hands of Francisco de Mello Palheta who was sent by the emperor
to French Guiana for the purpose of obtaining coffee seedlings. But the French
were not willing to share and Palheta was unsuccessful. However, he was said to
have been so handsomely engaging that the French Governor's wife was
captivated. As a going-away gift, she presented him with a large bouquet of
flowers. Buried inside he found enough coffee seeds to begin what is
today a billion-dollar industry. In only 100 years, coffee had established
itself as a commodity crop throughout the world. Missionaries and
travellers, traders and colonists continued to carry coffee seeds to new lands
and coffee trees were planted worldwide. Plantations were established in
magnificent tropical forests and on rugged mountain highlands. Some crops
flourished, while others were short-lived. New nations were established
on coffee economies. Fortunes were made and lost. And by the end of
the 18th century, coffee had become one of the worlds most profitable export
crops.
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