An anecdote about the Kaldi myth

First the Myth

One of the most common myths about how coffee was found involves a goat herder called Kaldi, whose goats either did not come home, or he noticed they where frisky, and on investigation noted that they had eaten the fruit of the coffee plan.

The myth has many flaws, one of them is that the coffee fruit is very low in caffeine, and the seed (or green bean) is hard to chew, not that goats would struggle to eat anything.


Some of the below is found in Kenneth Davids' Coffee book.

The test

In two independent tests done with goats of the region, the goats showed no interest at all in the coffee fruit on the tree.

In the orchard

Test one the goats were herded in to a a coffee orchard, and videoed, no matter how little grass was under the trees they still rather ate that than the coffee fruit, even when they were offered a branch of the tree from their herder

Hungrier Goats

In the Yemen, a group of hungry goats where offered three things, one after another:

1. fresh coffee branches
2. dry grass>
3. Qat tree leaves (a local stimulant)

The preference was 3,2,1

A side note

Goats in Ethiopia are feed the leaves of the coffee plant, when the people there feed them that. This is interesting since there is also debate on whether or not the goat herder was Ethiopian or Arabic.