aCOFFEli! baby boom

Have you ever wondered why there are so many prams and pushchairs — or, for that matter, so many patently pregnant women — in Main Street? It's all those cups of coffee consumed by Gibraltar's menfolk!At least that's one theory — if the latest researches by a group of Brazilian scientists are to be believed. They claim that drinking coffee makes men more fertile by making sperm more active and speeding its approach to the female ova.

If correct,their researches turn old conceptions on their head, for old wives tales (and many modern doctors) argue that drinking coffee can lead to fe male infertility — a concept that inspired Johann Sebastian Bach's "Kaffee-Kantate". Com posed in 1737 the cantata in praise of coffee was also an at tack on official moves in Ger many to prevent women from drinking coffee which was thought to make them sterile. It includes an aria in which the heroine sings:"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee."

Dubbed the "Devil's Brew" soon after its introduction to Western Europe by Italian trad ers early in the 17th century,cof fee has a chequered history and its spread to become the world's second most popular beverage — tea,thanks largely to China's massive population remains top of the list! — involves political skullduggery, smuggling and even a few romantic touches. Its origins as a drink are sur rounded by myth. According to one medieval version, the effect of coffee beans on behavior was noticed by an Arab shepherd called Kaldi who noticed that his sheep became hyperactive after eating the red "cherries" from a certain plant when they changed pastures.

He tried a few himself, and was soon as overactive as his herd. The story goes on that a monk who just happened to be passing at the time scolded him for "partaking of the devil's fruit." Just what a monk was do ing in the Arabian desert before the first Crusade is not clear, but according to the yam,the monks soon discovered that this fruit from the shiny green plant could help them stay awake for their prayers.

Another version also provides the name"mocha",by which cof fee was originally known throug}n.)Lit much of Europe. Ac cording to this talc,"an Arabian was banished to the desert with hisfollowers to die ofstarvation. In desperation, Omar had his friends boil and eat the fruit from an unknown plant. Not only did the broth save the exiles, but their survival was taken as a religious sign by the residents of the nearest town. Mocha. The plant and its beverage were named Mocha to honour this event."

Early African ex plorers record that an Ethiopian tribe, the Galla, also used cof fee, but not as a the region. When it reached Western Eu rope,in 1600 its "infidel" origins persuaded the Roman catholic hierarchy that it was the devil's drink. However,Pope Vincent III decided to taste it before banning it — and enjoyed it so much he

Pope

Ill Decided To Taste

drink.They would wrap the beans in animal fat as their only source of nutrition while on raiding par ties. Arabs are thought to have begun to cultivate the wild coffee plant about a thousand years ago, with Turkey the first country to adopt it as a drink.

Regarded as a delicacy its secret was fiercely guarded and trans portation of the plant out of the Moslem nations was forbidden by the government.The actualspread of coffee was started illegally when an Arab smuggled beans to some mountains near Mysore,In dia, and started a farm there. The descendants of those original plants are still producing coffee in baptized it,saying "coffee is so de licious it wouid be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it."

The Dutch East India Company became the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially,with a plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha in 1690 and for a quarter of a century dominated the market — and dictated prices — from their plantations in Ceylon and in their colony Java... hence the brew's nickname.

But in 1713 the Dutch unwit tingly provided Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose descendants laid the foun dations of the entire Western cof fee industry — when a French na val officer Gabriel Mathieu du Clieu stole a seedling and planted it on Martinique.

Within 50 years an official sur vey records that there were 19 million coffee trees on Martin ique,and historians reckon that 90 percent of the world's coffee produced today is from de scendants of the stolen plant.

The Brazilian coffee industry — today the world biggest pro ducer — has its origins in 1737 when a Dutch official was sent to arbitrate a border dispute be tween the French and the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Notonly did he settle the dis pute, but he began an affair with the wife of French Guiana's governor."Although France guarded its New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said goodbye to the Dutch man with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee."

"Fertile seeds"... which brings us back to Main Street's matrons...

Britain'sfirst coffee house was opened in 1652and was quickly followed by other "talking shops" which became known as "penny unhvrsities"-the price of a cup. Edivard Lloyd's coffeehouse opened in ISSSand became a popular haunt of merchants and maritime insurance agents, eventually becoming Lloyd's of London, ike best-known insurance company in the world.