Wake Up the Beach Boy Way

During the days when the Marco Beach Boys and Girls began, we needed fuel to power the excitement of the day. This was in the very early mornings before the beach was busy, and the only creatures stirring were the dolphins over the sandbar and the sea skimmers darting low over the first light that touched the foreshore.

In the captivation of these early and very special moments on the big white strand, there was Beach Boy coffee. Everyone had coffee from Quinn’s on the Beach, and it was a unique tradition handed down from the very first Beach Boys and Girls. The coffee was always in the big cups with the Tiki bamboo Hawaiian figureheads, and it was different from ordinary coffee because we added a pack of instant hot chocolate to the already steaming double-strong brew. This was our version of the early morning beverage tradition that never failed to bring out the best in everyone. On one special occasion, when a stiff onshore wind was whipping the whitecaps into ocean foam and spindrift, we gathered and sipped our brew as we listened to the seafaring story of how coffee came to be.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a vast high plain with valleys stretching out far below. Atop this African plateau were ancient forests of beautiful trees that produced thousands upon thousands of green berries. The berries on the trees became ripe every year, and during the season when the grazing became scarce in the valleys, a goat herder with the auspicious name of Kaldi led his large herd of goats to the summit in search of food for the late summer.

Kaldi’s goats at once began to eat the fallen berries from the ancient trees, but even after two days of climbing and reaching the summit, the goats would not sleep at night. Instead of sleeping, the vast herd of goats would chase each other and call out loudly throughout the night.

After many nights atop the plateau in the ancient forest of berry trees, Kaldi drove his excited herd back into a nearby valley and called upon a local monastery. The goat herder related his story to the abbot, who promptly made a drink with the berries and tasted the brew. The abbot was instantly convinced the berries were a gift from God because after drinking the newly found beverage, the delighted leader of the monastery had no problems staying awake for the long hours of late evening prayers.

Many years later, European sailors made landfall in the port city of Mocha in Yemen. The sailors were saddened to learn that there were no alcoholic beverages in the southern Arabian Peninsula, but the natives were drinking a popular beverage made from roasted berries of the coffee tree. The sailors at once found the beverage invigorating and inspiring as it created a changing lifestyle. Normally the sailors drank grog, beer, wine or ale because water was often tainted and was the cause of sickness. The new Arabian beverage, however, was soon deemed safe to drink - because the water was boiled to make coffee - and after several days in Mocha, the sailors found that the energy produced by coffee had a great deal of appeal over the lethargic effects of constant intakes of alcohol.    

The sailors promptly filled their ship with coffee beans and returned to Europe to spread the word, the taste, and the stimulating effects of coffee. Within ten years, camel caravans brought thousands of bags of coffee beans into the port of Mocha for transport back to Europe. Each year the camel caravans became larger as the cultivation of the popular berries and roasted beans became ever more popular.

During the early 17th century, European producers of wine, beer and spirits began to call for the outlawing of coffee because the newest rage in the beverage world was cutting into the profits of the spirit makers. The distillers at one point were referring to the importers of coffee as the revengers of the holy crusades because coffee came from Muslim countries, and it was an obvious invasion!

Despite the rhetoric from the spirit-makers, coffee houses began to appear throughout France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. The first coffee shops were at once popular as beehives of learning, entertainment, innovative gambling, and enlightened conversation.

In only a few years, coffee began to spill out of the coffee houses and into individual homes as a new and wildly popular breakfast drink. The distillers were once again crying out and up in arms when coffee began to replace wine and beer as the standard beverage at breakfast. Employers throughout the new coffee regions were vastly pleased because of sudden upticks in productivity and the lack of drunken fistfights at work. 

In the early 18th century, the King of France planted the gift of a coffee tree in the royal botanical gardens. Twenty years later, a secret mission was underway to transport seedlings of the king’s coffee tree over the Atlantic Ocean and onto the Caribbean island of Martinique for mass cultivation. The king’s seedling became a thriving coffee crop, and within a few decades, over 16 million coffee trees became the offspring of the French seedling. In fact, all of the coffee plantations that spread throughout the Caribbean and into Central and South America came from the one French seedling and the once-secret mission to expand innovative trade and inspirational thought for the glory of France.

Lloyd’s coffee house became one of the most noteworthy meeting places for business in 19th-century London. Because of the delicious and vibrant beverage and the stimulating conversation, and because much of the shipping business of the British Empire was conducted over Lloyds coffee, the insurance industry began when patrons of Lloyds began speculating over the possibilities that overseas shipping would either arrive safely in port or would be lost at sea.