ب [لديا] [بروسكهينجر]
[لديليف-بروكشنغ.كم]

كيف يستطيع نحن سحبت دروس من يسحق فاصوليا و [برلس]? إن أنت تريد أن يجد خارجا, يأتي مع ي على هذا ثروة عمليّة صيد لطويلة نسيت قصص حول رفاهية مستبعد, وفرة من لون تابليّة, صوى شرقيّة وإشارات رمزيّة, عندما يكتشف أنت أكثر حول "الخمر من الفاصوليا". يعلمنا الإكتشاف ليس فحسب حول [ولث كرأيشن] واعية, هو يقدّم أنت إلى رجل الذي أنقذ الملكة إنكلترا من دماره ماليّة, الذي أعطى إنكلترا ظهر عملته ويعطي أنت لمح من الآثار من الماض أنّ يأخذنا من أنفرس إلى لندن في قلب نبض والسرعة الفكرة. كان هذا جميعا يحدث أثناء وقت حيث أيّ [أونشرت] مسلك سبب بكفاية أن يذهب يستكشف. فكّرت حول هو: اليوم, يحصل الناس ضائعة حتّى مع [غبس]…!!! أذهلت ب [أيل بينتينغ] و [سبيا] صور من وفرة ومغامرة. تركت تاريخ سلّيت أنت وربّيت أنت مع معرفة وأساطير أنّ يتلقّى يذهب طريق بعد الدروس معدّلة وقت غير أنّ أيّ أبديت التطبيق من القانون الحالة جذب, في استعادة ماضي. جعلت كيف أتمّ الملكة الجواهر كلا, ملكة [إليسبث] ومصر [كليوبترا], ربح - رفض, لا وزن - ثروة, [سبلندور], وأهمية دوليّة, وكيف يتمّ هذا جميعا يلاءم داخل مع ال نوعا ما مختلفة "لؤلؤة سوداء" أنّ في البداية جعل معزات رقصت قبل أن هو التفت إحتفاله داخل عادة [ألّ وفر] الكرة أرضيّة. حصلت يلهم ب "الخمر من الفاصوليا"!

ماذا يكون…."الخمر من الفاصوليا"?

يتمّ أنت يحبّ الرائحة من حديثا يخترق قهوة? أنت تأخذ سكر أو لبن, أو كلا, أو لا شيء من الآنفة? قهوة عبارة أنّ يستنتج من الإيطاليّة "[كفّ]", ورغم أنّ الإيطاليات لم يخترعوا قهوة, كان هم مفيدة إلى يتأكّد أنّ ال "[قهّوت] [أل-بون]", أيّ يترجم من [أربيك] إلى اللغة الانجليزية "الخمر من الفاصوليا", كان تسوّقت في كلّ أركان من العالم. هناك ما من حقيقة حول التاريخ تاريخيّة من إكتشافه, ولا يستطيع واحدة كنت يوقن [أس تو] الأصل القهوة غير أنّ قلت هو أن يتكوّن من مماثلة يصوّت المملكة [كفّا] في أثيوبيا. من صدقت هناك هو كان ظاهريّا إلى يمن, ومن هناك هو تلقّى يكون أحضرت إلى مصر, سوريا, فارس وتركيا وهذا بالتّأكيد عن طريق طرق أنّ مغامرات, الرحّالة, وتجار سافروا لأكثر من أيام, أسابيع وشهور.

It’s apparent that you have to read this story with the awareness that a lot of it is actually truth but perhaps equally as much myth. And we would like to believe it because we are intrigued by the story of an Arab goat herder by name Kalid who lived in Ethiopia in 750. It’s not an easy job to herd goats (I would imagine) and these animals represented the herder’s assets. So if one got lost, stolen or killed, it was not a small loss. He would go run and defend, jump across pointy stones and across sandy stretches to bring back a run-away goat, a lost or stolen and woe to the thief when he got caught. Kalid observed one day none of the imaginable scenarios. What he observed was somewhat different. His goats were dancing. After they had tasted the red berries from the coffee bush, they seemed to be jumping for joy, elated over this deliciously cherry-red berry and energized to the point that they went silly. Let’s stop here and give this picture a frame. Close your eyes and imagine the scene. Perhaps it was pure coincidence to discover the energizing effects this berry had but what was no longer coincidence was the fact that it was later made into a drink that resembled wine because of the color, one can’t say for sure. But perhaps, as the preparation initially was literally pouring hot water over the fermented fruits, it had similar effects when people started to drink the water. While all this is mere speculation, the controversies about the history of coffee are as rich are the brew itself. Would I exaggerate if I called the coffee bean a “black pearl”? Think about it: Trade during that time only really made sense if you could make good money, and in a sense that’s still true today. A silly bean, if you want, would you not be able to make profit from it you would leave it where it is, right? People could care less if it had some special effects or not. The effect they wanted to have after taking such dangerous risk was what? Yes, to fill their pouches with epics and, most of all, hard currency. That would make more of the trade happen and worth while.

Let’s fill this historical blank spot with a bit of our own imagination. Let’s use this moment to meditate on Kalid who was a goat herder and perhaps got a little flute to keep him company in solitary moments of the day. Did he think that if his flute didn’t get those goats dancing that there must have been a magic spell that did? If you fill these images with sepia colors of pastoral landscapes and imagery, can you smell the scent of spices and feel the warmth of the wind that would carry sounds of the regions’ animals, bushes and trees to form a melody all of its own? Well, it could not have been that either, all that did was make the birds cry from getting nostalgic. We can vividly imagine a herd of dancing goats, can’t we? Doesn’t that make you chuckle? Or, what I believe makes for even better giggles, the chin(s) of the goat herder that dropped for a few inches, leaving his mouth gapping wide open at the site of his beasts gone berserk, rubbing his eyes not wanting to believe what he saw. The scene must have been filled with mixed emotions, hysterical laughs or perhaps was followed with screams of fear. After all, the normally feeding animals suddenly started behaving totally out of the norm, which could have made the goat herder think that they were possessed by some evil demons. Let’s not forget that this was happening back in the rural 9th century, most probably he didn’t think in terms of a metabolically imbalanced state or even in terms of state-modifying substances affecting the goats’ cellular homeostasis. He could have thought it’s something diabolical and this could mean that he had to fear about his own skin, not just his mental balance.

But apparently, none of the above was the case. The effects did not last forever. Kalid’s animals didn’t die. They seemed a bit “energized” but no other symptoms of permanent damage. As a consequence, and perhaps out of curiosity he went ahead to “test” the fruit himself and consumption of it gave him a similar effect from what wine would have done. Wine back then was merely the juice of grapes that were pressed and fermented and the “wine of the bean” was nothing but the pulp of the fermented coffee berries, and the process to become what we know today was still a long way off.

And the trail coffee started to set out on was indeed a long one. On the way to Turkey and Baghdad coffee trade the traveling beans passed by Mecca and Medina. The “Bunn”, that’s what the coffee beans were called in Arabic, used to make – no, not goats - Sufis dance, who used it to stay awake at night in remembrance of God. Initially it served as a ‘temporary’ replacement for Al-Gat, a plant which was used to make the infusion for the religious practices and which at this time was in shortage, Sheik Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, must have felt that coffee was better than nothing and he allowed the use of coffee in the ceremonies, officially. Slowly but surely, and because of the beneficial effects of coffee, it later replaced Al-Gat all together. The newly adopted Muslim ceremonial beverage didn’t stop there to cause a stir. It might have endured storms and not just those in a coffee cup, but literal storms that wrecked many ships. But the sinful bean’s conquest went all the way, never stopping. It went traveling, farther and farther distances to reach the northern hemisphere, which was engaged in a flourishing trade with northern Africa, for a market certainly awaited it, despite its sinful condition being a drink with “heathen” origins, on the European continent. Arriving on camels and carts it was loaded on big ships which would sail, wind willing, with adventurer merchants until it finally ended up in Italy. There was no language barrier for coffee. Upon its arrival there was a cultural barrier, or more precisely a pontifical barrier, which perhaps during the Ancient Roman Empire times it would not have faced, since Mark Anthony was more than just friends with Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt.

Just to remember how long a “friendship” Egypt and Italy look back on in history, we have to go back in time to days in which Egyptian money fought Roman battles. After all, Cleopatra was the richest woman in the world. She crushed, in a symbolical demonstration of her wealth, and perhaps to impress Mark Anthony, (which in my opinion was unnecessary as he had already fallen for her charms), one of her earrings made of a precious pearl. One had to be Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator during this time to afford the queen of the gems. People in Rome would spend their riches just to have their pockets filled with them and women there even decorated upholstery with them, as well as making their garments heavy with them. It is unthinkable today that a pearl would be worth the same amount as the one pearl in question. What today is known as Cleopatra’s aperitif, since she drank the powdered jewel, would be worth a solid $ 9,375,000. Not surprising that that night Mark Anthony didn’t eat. He came to borrow money from her to finance his war. The demonstration of Cleopatra’s dietary preferences left him swallowing his own saliva. But she was not the only one to crush a precious pearl just because she wanted to brag and win a wager. More about this later.

Now back to the precious black pearl, coffee. It was considered very costly, gained popularity in particular among the nobility and the wealthy, who were the only ones to afford the drink. The merchants who brought back coffee to Venice, as already stated earlier, were facing a barrier. Perhaps to give you a backdrop of Venice during this time, and the cultural atmosphere of religious animosity which created air as thick as if one were to cut it in slices. If you have not yet seen it, go and watch the movie “The merchant of Venice” in which Al Pacino’s amazing talent interprets a scrupulous money lender, Shylock. The story, based on Shakespeare’s work, represents the time well. To introduce “caffè” to Italy against this Christian ruled world, meant that it would need to be served up hot, in all senses of the term. And even though Italy prides itself with the mastery of specialty recipes of coffee, it sure needed getting used to. It was necessary for the Pope Clement VIII to officially give coffee his blessing. However, this did not make coffee object of a doctrine in favour of inter-faith religious celebration. Or perhaps it did, in a sense because today, no matter what faith people belong to, they all meet around their coffee tables and discuss various topics, as they do here at Cyres. Well, it sure was unintentional and merely showed the power of strategic lobbying of Venetian merchants, who sure didn’t bring it all this way just to get stuck with large quantities of coffee in storage. They were able to break through the barrier and facilitate trade in Europe, although it is said that the Dutch started the real mass-trading of coffee later on. Since the church’s approval took away the stigma of it being a “Muslim” drink further connections were enabled and the mastery of tradesmanship brought coffee to be a consumable commodity traded on all continents.

Would you consider this a success? I sure would. Especially since the popularity sure was entirely based on word of mouth and was not aided by aggressive marketing campaigns, as the ones one can observe on TV commercials today. Today’s trendy café interiors reflect the way in which coffee influenced our thinking and how it has become a cultural element, facilitator or social interaction and how it rightly is associated with images of well-being, serenity, carrying the feel-good factor regardless what label or blend. Fully integrated in our daily professional and social life, coffee is a life style item, and not only a trademark for designer labels, connoisseurs can determine the country of origin by merely looking at the bar-code. The types that are not just looking at the aesthetic perfection of the taste and aroma, which vary of course depending on what region they come from, they also have a form of contribution to making this world a better place. Without being partial now for any of the fair-trade brands currently in circulation, it feels good to have a cup of coffee knowing that some of the money that you paid for it will flow back to the country of origin, or at least that’s what the idea is.

The tale of wealth creation is as old as man’s desire to learn how to master the fire but by far less successful. The history of coffee surely is inspiring and shows that what might have seemed impossible was possible after all. There is but a small part of our population that uses this large space, which we all have for improvement and creativity, as incentive to learn and then earn. Let’s look at the time line: Today everyone knows how to make fire. My question is, how many million years should our society still wait around until it wakes up and smells the coffee to really start earning? It’s true that it’s a bit easier when money for generations ran in rivers in ones family. And true is also that there is no one-size-fits all solution as to how to create it and make it last. From this little bean, still a very deep lesson can be learned. Although today all men know how to make fire, it took them a while to master this skill. Even if we all have electrical power today (or else you would not be reading this blog on the internet) we didn’t all invent the light bulb. One would should think that man over time understood how markets work and how money flows. Man is equipped to make decisions and is capable of lots of wondrous works. But not everyone masters the art of wealth creation. At least not when I last checked. And if they do, how many do so consciously?

In light of our progress, one should think that this type of knowledge would have trickled down across the centuries. Does the percentage of our population reflect this? Hardly.

Perhaps the discovery of coffee was based more on luck than skill, nonetheless, the discovery of coffee was only possible because people were making this observation, repeated the event, obtained the same results over and over. As soon as the discovery of the commodity was made, the forming of new habits and the creation of teams would soon follow suit. Isn’t that how everyone can start building wealth consciously? When Mark Anthony asked his Queen for a loan, he did so because his empire was running out of money because of wars using up the finances. Well, the same thing happened to Queen Elisabeth.

During the 1600s, Queen Elisabeth was a bit short on cash given the fact that the wars consumed lots of it, she needed, what we would call today, a wealth coach, or perhaps a financial analyst. This should underline the fact that there is no shame in asking advice when the going gets tough. Who brought Her Majesty successfully back into black? The finance wiz, with a weakness for the crown, was Thomas Gresham. Apparently the Gresham pearl was named after him, and in a wager with the Spanish Ambassador, guess…. indeed…he crushed the pearl in order to demonstrate his wealth and what he could offer Queen Elisabeth. He willingly assisted her, not selflessly of course since he raked in quite some fortunes for himself. The government ceased a Spanish treasure and he suggested to have it coined. Great move. He managed to bring back the crown’s wealth and stabilized the value of the pound, unconventional methods, as I would suppose the adventurer merchants did not necessarily like the idea of having to first lend the crown money before they were allowed to go on their travel and quests. Whilst the crushed natural pearls value is to be of £15,000, it must seem ridiculous an amount, compared with the wealth he was accumulating in Her Majesty’s service. Oh, nobody ever said it was easy. He even fell off his horse and was lame for the rest of his life, but nonetheless, he left his home country to life in Antwerp and not to return empty handed. Although it is not sure whether he was one of the wealthy people who took to drinking coffee, we know from the pearl he crushed that he drunk wine. Now as if he knew that this symbolic act would make history, just as it did in the case of Cleopatra, he could not possibly have known that because of his mercantile fervour, his assistance to the crown in financial matters, many Forex traders today wished to have so much direct impact on global external affairs as he did. All they can do is to be inspired by his way of asking the council to send a certain amount of pound sterling to Antwerp so that he could sell it back on the foreign exchange money market, and as such increase the circulation and the value of it, gradually and with success. Gresham had even founded a college in London to make his knowledge available for free. Apparently that was not welcomed by Cambridge University and the idea never made it to be realized. So despite his influence, free access to the knowledge of financial intelligence was kept behind University walls. And although he fell in and out of the favour of the crown, he was unable to realize his desire to teach others without cost about wealth mastery and exchange rates, stocks, bonds. Or perhaps he was already too old to fight for the right of future generations after him. Eventually he had lost his only son and all his wealth went into building the Royal Exchange in London, for which he called a Flemish architect using the model given by the exchange in Antwerp, remained an idea. Times change and the building was burned twice, used today as a shopping center but the Gresham legacy remains. For him it was clear that he had so much power because he possessed the knowledge and was able to function on the social and cultural levels that could gain him access to where things were happening, using to the fullest the proximity to the crown and cultivate the conversations necessary to keep informed about all things trade. For you to stay abreast with all things Cyres, stay tuned for the next blog.

Have a sparkling day!!!!