Category Archives: Coffee

Bunk is not Bunn: A Silly Claim about the Origin of Coffee

In a non-academic website called Atlas Obscura, there is an article with the entertaining title: “Before Drinking Coffee, People Washed Their Hands With It.” The article was written by Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi scholar who has published excellent work on classical Arabic recipe books. However, this particular article is anything but sound scholarship. Her main argument is that a “mysterious ingredient” very similar to coffee was known five centuries before the documented appearance of coffee, known in Arabic as “bunn“, as a drink. “However, instead of bunn, it was called bunk, and rather than drinking this ingredient, it was mostly used for cleaning and freshening the hands,” she argues.

Her argument is flawed from the start. She is aware that the 9th century Ibn Masawayh defined bunk as an aromatic coming to Iraq from Yemen. He clearly identifies it as coming from the trunk wood of a plant called Umm Ghaylan. However, Nasrallah says Ibn Masawayh was confused, without indicating why. The link to the wood of Umm Ghaylan is also made by al-B’iruni, who adds that it is a Persian term, and by other scholars. Umm Ghaylan is a well-known name for a species of acacia grown on the Arabian Peninsula. Nasrallah was unaware that the renowned botanical scholar Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari, a contemporary of Ibn Masawayh, described Umm Ghaylan as a synonym for talh, the well known term for several acacia species, including the major gum arabic variety. Al-Dinawari also noted the terms for the parts of the tree, specifically defining bunk as the bark (laha) of the acacia tree. This term for bark is still in use in Saudi Arabia. So unless these early scholars were making it up, which I doubt, the meaning of bunk is clearly established. The claim that a 16th century traveler named Leonhard Rauwolf said that the coffee beans he saw being roasted (he never saw the tree) were the same as the term bunk used centuries earlier is hardly reliable proof, especially since Rauwolf assumed that the term bunn for coffee was no different than the earlier term bunk. It was not unusual for writers at this time to make such claims without any real evidence.

Nasrallah writes that early medical scholars like al-Razi and Ibn Sina describe the qualities of bunk “to check the unpleasant odors of sweat and the smell of the quick-lime used in baths to remove hair,” but no mention is made of it as a drink. It is a serious stretch of logic to suggest, as the author does, that when Ibn Sina said that “consuming bunk had mind-altering properties, ‘which could affect the intellect,’” this was proof that this was the first time anyone had pointed out the impact of caffeine. It is not unusual for herbals to comment on the impact of certain substances on the mind, so such a general statement does not imply caffeine from coffee.

In addition to ignoring the clear identification of the plant, which is not mysterious at all, Nasrallah can cite no evidence from Yemen for such an identification. If the coffee plant was indeed coming from Yemen in the 9th century, why is there no reference in any Yemeni text to it? The geographical text of the 9th century al-Hamdani mentions numerous plants, but not any known term for coffee, nor the term bunk. Nor do the agricultural and medicinal treatises of the Rasulid era (13th-15th centuries) refer to coffee. The known documented sources suggest that coffee came from Ethiopia as a drink useful for Sufis; this was probably sometime in the latter half of the 15th century. By 1500 it had spread widely from Yemen and even prompted a legal meeting in 1511 to determine if it was licit for Muslims, as discussed in an article by the historian Jon Mandaville.

The speculation continues with the following claim: “As for coffee as a hand-cleaning product, it seems that the spread of good-quality colored and perfumed soaps eclipsed its popularity. As bunk itself faded away, so did the knowledge of what it was used for.” To suggest that by the 16th century no one used traditional plant products for aromatics or for hand washing is ridiculous, as such practices have continued into the last century. To assume that perfumed soaps were widely available among a population that was still mainly rural and poor is silly. To think that the drinking of coffee took off after several centuries of hand-washing is wishful thinking. There is no evidence at all that the term bunk, which is not related to the coffee term bunn, ever referred to anything other than a product of the acacia tree. To argue otherwise is pure bunk.

The Boon in Yemen’s Bun


Men smoke shisha water pipes in a cafe in Sanaa, Oct. 1, 2011. (photo by REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah)

Yemen’s Modern Coffee Shops: Progressive, Yet Exclusive
by Farea al-Muslimi, Al-Monitor, September 5 2013

SANAA, Yemen — Over the past few decades, Yemen has been known to conjure images of serious conservatism, isolation between men and women and male dominance over issues pertaining to daily life.

However, things look different here: A group of boys, girls, men and women are having discussions in modern coffee shops, which have become popular in the past 10 years and have significantly become more common across Sanaa in the past few years, including the historical part of the old city. The coffee shops, however, are more concentrated in the southwest of the city, where the richest and most open neighborhood, al-Siyasi Hadda, is located. They have become posh meeting spots for the privileged classes that can afford it.

There are coffee shops with foreign names that largely resemble any coffee shop in Amman, Cairo or Beirut, but the difference here is that the stone buildings are more elegant and posh.

Waitresses — hailing from Ethiopia and East Asia, alongside a few Yemenis — wear uniforms and serve you with a gentle smile that you cannot find elsewhere in the city. In fact, you usually cannot so much as look at a woman’s body, even if she were covered from head to toe. One can typically see little more than the standard black abaya, or a niqab for the more conservative.

You can order hot or cold beverages and Western snacks, the names of which are unknown to many people. Moreover, you can spot the most modern and cleanest coffee shops if you do not smoke shisha [sweetened tobacco smoked with a water pipe]. Some coffee shops offer it for high prices, while others do not find it suitable to be served in their establishment. Continue reading The Boon in Yemen’s Bun

Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #4: Morocco to Afghanistan


Area: 219,000 sq. mi
Population: 2,750,000
Government: Absolute Monarchy
Scenes: Morocco Leather; City of Morocco; Street Scene in Morocc
o

previous post I began a series on coffee advertising cards with Middle Eastern themes. One of the most colorful collections is that provided by the Arbuckle Coffee Company. In my great, great aunt’s album there were several Middle Eastern and North African nations represented, but she did not have all the cards. Here is a final potpourri from Arbuckle’s 1889 series, starting with Morocco above. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #4: Morocco to Afghanistan

Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #3: Turkey and Persia


Area: 63,800 sq. mi
Population: 4,490,000
Government: Absolute Despotism
Scenes: Merchants Buying Carpets

previous post I began a series on coffee advertising cards with Middle Eastern themes. One of the most colorful collections is that provided by the Arbuckle Coffee Company. In my great, great aunt’s album there were several Middle Eastern and North African nations represented, but from a different series than in the Arbuckle’s 1889 series. The 1889 version of Turkey is shown above, but my aunt’s version of Turkey is decidedly more imaginative:

Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #3: Turkey and Persia

Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #2: Egypt

previous post I began a series on coffee advertising cards with Middle Eastern themes. One of the most colorful collections is that provided by the Arbuckle Coffee Company. In my great, great aunt’s album there is a card depicting ancient Egypt, which is shown above.

In the 1889 series depicting the nations of the world, Egypt also appears:


Area: 11,000 sq. mi
Population: 6,806,381
Government: Turkish Vice Royalty
Scenes: Date Palm; The Obelisk of Luxor; Cotton Barges on the Nile

[Tabsir Redux is a reposting of earlier posts on the blog, since memories are fickle and some things deserve a second viewing.this post was originally made on March 6, 2010]

Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #1: Mecca and Arabia

Arbuckles’ Ariosa (air-ee-o-sa) Coffee packages bore a yellow label with the name ARBUCKLES’ in large red letters across the front, beneath which flew a Flying Angel trademark over the words ARIOSA COFFEE in black letters. Shipped all over the country in sturdy wooden crates, one hundred packages to a crate, ARBUCKLES’ ARIOSA COFFEE became so dominant, particularly in the west, that many Cowboys were not aware there was any other kind. Keen marketing minds, the Arbuckle Brothers printed signature coupons on the bags of coffee redeemable for all manner of notions including handkerchiefs, razors, scissors, and wedding rings. To sweeten the deal, each package of ARBUCKLES’ contained a stick of peppermint candy. Due to the demands on chuck wagon cooks to keep a ready supply of hot ARBUCKLES’ on hand around the campfire, the peppermint stick became a means by which the steady coffee supply was ground. Upon hearing the cook’s call, “Who wants the candy?” some of the toughest Cowboys on the trail were known to vie for the opportunity of manning the coffee grinder in exchange for satisfying a sweet tooth.

While sorting through a bevy of late 19th century advertising cards and magazine illustrations collected by my great, great aunt in several yellowing albums, I came across several for the Middle East that were published for Arbuckle’s coffee. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #1: Mecca and Arabia