That's A Tall Order

Morning Machine combines centuries of coffee development into the touch of a button

- Alfieyah Abdullah

If I told you that coffee was discovered by goats, would you believe me? Probably not. Yet the origin of coffee is based on the Ethiopian legend of Kaldi, a goat herder, whose goats became energetic after eating “berries” from a certain tree.

The knowledge of said ‘energizing berries’ traveled through the East, and reached the Arabian peninsula, leading to coffee cultivation and trade. Logically, the coffee beans were stoked over a fire and added to water without recognising the potential of the combination. But the legend gets even more intriguing.

The 19th Century coffee-driven innovations centered around roasted coffee tins and bags to ensure its status as a consumer commodity. Not so long ago, a new era of coffee introduced ‘at home coffee’, and technological advances allowed for the creation of home drip machines and instant coffees. Like in the world of the Jetsons, no convenience is convenient enough, and people soon sought coffee on the go. The era of baristas provided a personalized experience that soothed the needs of coffee lovers. They were leaving instant coffees behind and reaching for cups of the handcrafted stuff, thus raising coffee to various levels of luxury. The better coffee became, the more conscious people became of its traceability, quality, flavor profiles, even production practices.