It is probably not an exaggeration to state that the world owes its addictive coffee habit to the spread of the cosmopolitan civilization of Islam.
Coffee was most likely introduced to the Turks via the port of Mocha in Yemen , and then spread by the Sufi orders and merchants throughout the Ottoman lands.
While the jurists debated the permissibility of drinking the liquid black gold, Muslim sages, mystics, and masses voted with their lips. Vox populi vox Dei , indeed. In fact, one could argue β in line with the overall argument about the originality, the uniqueness, and the disruption present at the edges β that coffee drinking at the edges of the Muslim civilization has certain unparalleled dimensions.
But if you really want to drink best Turkish coffee, go to Bosnia. And one of our names for coffee, Java, comes from the Indonesian island namesake, where much of the blessed berry was grown in the s. Islam on the Edges should, then, take its rightful place at the center of coffee culture. From Bosnia and Herzegovina to Indonesia, Muslims have enjoyed great coffee for centuries.
A famous adage states, De gustibus non est disputandum In matters of taste, there can be no disputes. Never has a more popular saying stated a bigger falsehood. Of course, tastes are, and must be, disputed!!! Someone once reminded me that you can never be super snobbish about coffee. Some things just are.
