Suddenly, the wailing and dancing stops and everyone crumbles to the ground in a black heap. Rising up from the front is the chief, both hands clasping a brass urn as he pours out a dark-coloured broth into small bowls held out by the men. The bowls are raised to lips and passed around in silence. I am offered one too, by a man with eyes that have a strange shine, and as I slowly bend to sip, I close my eyes. The wailing starts again. When I open my eyes the familiar surroundings of the caf� are back. The loud thumping music, the chatter of the gals and guys and the non-stop aroma of roasted coffee.
 
What I had just witnessed in a sense of d�j� vu was an all night prayer session of Sufi Saints, at Mocha in Yemen, circa 13th century and the broth being passed around was coffee. Arab traders brought the first beans into Yemen, from Ethiopia, where coffee was

discovered by shepherds, who noticed that the sheep stayed awake after chomping on the red berries. For the Sufi Saints, desperately in search for something to keep the devout awake, the dark colored bean was heavensent. It calmed nerves, drove away sleep and replenished much needed energy. The habit of coffee drinking then trickled down from the Arab clergy to the masses, which called the drink ‘Quahwa’, literally meaning that which prevents sleep. The Arabs then took to cultivating it on a massive scale. Coffee production and trade became a lucrative business and the Arabs held on to the monopoly, even prohibiting carrying the plant out of Moslem shores.
Then in 1610,Baba Budan, an Indian Muslim pilgrim to Mecca, smuggled the coffee