I went to our local Ethiopian last night with a Canadian friend who is originally from Eritrea. At the back of the restaurant is a little model hut with what I took to be a tea set on it. I asked Giuidi and she was explaining about the Ethiopian/Eritrean coffee ritual.

I also looked it up on Wiki and found this intriguing sentence:

"One extra cup is poured each time."

I will ask Giuidi next time I see her, but I couldn't help wondering who the extra cup was for?

There must be specific gods of tea in Chinese culture/ceremonies, but I was wondering about Coffee gods - especially from that region.

Anyone know?

I actually know this one. There are not any tea gods in China though there is a body of folklore that surrounds its discovery. It was supposedly discovered by Emperor Shen Nong (2700ish BC), who along with the Yellow Emperor, is attributed with creating or discovering almost every useful invention in Chinese history. He often sat outside and his servants were responsible for cleaning and boiling his water to drink. One day some leaves blew into his pot and the servants did not notice. He drank the brew, enjoyed it and set out on a quest to find which herbs were good to brew and drink. He wrote, I believe, the first Chinese herbal. There was also a monk named Lu Yu who wrote much later (AD 700ish I think) and directly attributes the discovery of tea to Shen Nong Shi.

So no tea deities, but there are also no Chinese coffee deities or spirits. That's for the very simple reason that coffee is an amazingly recent introduction to China. It really didn't arrive here until the 19th Century and didn't become widespread or popular until Nescafe came over with instant coffee and the interest in Western products began to spread.

There's my information dump on what I know about tea and coffee in China. I can't speak to tea/coffee deities in other areas, but as I'm a total folklore geek I'll be looking into Eastern and Southeastern Asian mythologies to see if I can find anything.

~Vertiline

Um, this is being dragged from the recesses of my memory, so may well be wrong and is certainly 'unreferenced'. I think the extra cup of coffee is poured for the dead - it's widely believed that coffee is their preferred beverage. I'll try and remember where that factoid came from though, Thinair.

Caerthan

Here's one: watch the video, it's interesting .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/content/articl...31/coffee.shtml

More trivia:

++In 15th Century Turkey it was legal for a woman to
divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with her
daily quota of coffee!++

Bloody civilized! http://www.decentcoffee.com/TurkishCoffee.html


More stuff:

http://www.checkoutethiopia.com/2008/03/20...offee-ceremony/

And various:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...751C1A9649C8B63

The Ethiopians were the first to have a 'coffee ritual' so it may be best to start there.

I couldn't find what Caerthan was referring to before my google-fu falthered.

Marto

I love my green tea - Russian caravan is my favourite - it seems churlish there is no deityto oversee it.

Cha's
Finvarra

Woooow - great stuff there guys, thanks!

Unfortunately Marto, the joys of broadband are yet to reach central Africa so I can't view any videos, but thanks for the research!

The question of the cup being for the dead is an interesting idea as it would be consistent with West African and African-Diasporic Vodoun, but Eritrea I'm not certain about as a lot of their customs I think are also influenced by Arabian customs so could be interesting to find out which it comes from.

You could be right, Thinair... I think the 'coffee for the dead' scenario was a Yoruba-derived custom.

Caerthan

Ah, I've always wondered why coffee is a favourite offering of Baron Samedi and his family. That would be why, then!

I did wonder about the Japanese Tea Ceremonies - whether there were any gods attached to the symbolism in that, but it turns out that there isn't. I even asked a couple of friends in Tokyo but no.

But did Arabs bring coffee to Africa?

No, it's first known origins are the highlands of Ethiopia.

Marto

So Coffee is originally an African plant? Not South American? Or different varieties grew world-wide?

As for Samedi - hmmm. I guess it's to do with strength of flavour too: waragi steeped in pillipilli, cigars - the better quality the greater the sign of wealth, another draw of Samedi.

You know, thinking of possession and caricatures brings back memories of the Passadena up the road - every Friday they hold a cabaret where a group of lanky Ugandans white-up and pretend to be mzungus (white people) lol - bizarre thing to watch: minstrels in reverse lol People here love it. There's one caricature though that I've seen a few times - usually he dances calypso which, although I think originally South American (?), has special significance in relation to Uganda for some reason. He looks like this - and there's a version at cabaret that whites up and slides across the floor on his belly collecting 100 franc notes lol

Anyway, back to the topic of tea and coffee...big attachment with the dead in South America too I think, though can't cite my sources at present. Not sure if that's because of the African diasporic influence or whether it's a native thing there too. Any link between tea and ancestors in China?