최초의 커피논문 ‘De Saluberrima Potione Cahue seu Cafe Nuncupata Discursus’(1671) 속의 커피 기원전설

The legend of coffee origin in the first coffee treatise ‘De Salubrrima Potione Cahue seu Cafe Nuncupata Discursus’ (1671): a history of appearance and transformation

This study is the first attempt to systematically analyze Faust Nainoni's paper 'De Salubrrima Potione Cahue seu Cafe Nuncupata Discursus', published in Rome in 1671 in the context of the times. In this article, the publication process, content, translation, and transformation and distortion of the content of the Naironi thesis will be dealt with. Through this, we try to reveal the Orientalism seen in the historical interpretation related to the origin of coffee. After this thesis was published, various literatures dealing with the legend of the goat shepherd Kaldi have been published. This study was conducted by analyzing these literatures. The findings of this study are summarized as follows. First, the author of this paper, Naironi, although born to Syrian parents, was a Christian, so he emphasized that coffee was discovered according to the providence of God, which is emphasized in Christianity. In other words, it is recorded that the new beverage called coffee was not a product of Asians or Asian culture, but was discovered by chance by an animal according to God's providence. Second, right after the thesis was published, various distortions were attempted based on prejudices against Asians and Eastern civilizations, that is, Orientalism, by European Christian intellectuals such as Antoine Gallant and Edelistan Jardin. In other words, the legend of coffee origin was added with a Christian connection that was not found in the Naironi thesis, and attempts were made to add Ethiopia and Egypt, which were places where Christianity spread, not Yemen, the Islamic civilization, as the background of the legend. Third, the re-creation of the legend of the goat shepherd Kaldi as we know it was triggered by the publication of a book called <All About Coffee> by American coffee historian William Ukers in 1922. In this book, the original camel disappeared, leaving a goat, the shepherd's name declared Kaldi, and Ethiopia, not Yemen, was identified as the birthplace of coffee. The date of origin of coffee is not mentioned. Fourth, as a result of analyzing domestic and foreign coffee-related books including the Kaldi legend, Korean books show goat (or sheep) as the main animal of the legend, Ethiopia as the background region, and the name of the shepherd is Kaldi. What is unique in Korean books on the legend of the origin of coffee is that they record the era of the legend of coffee. It is specifically described from the 8th to 9th centuries BC to the 6th to 7th centuries AD. This is a different trend than most Western writings do not mention the period or record it as unclear. Regarding the background region of the coffee legend, while many Western books mention Yemen or the Orient other than Ethiopia, Korean books without exception record Ethiopia. In conclusion, the story of the birth of coffee as we know it is a story that reflects Westerners' contempt for Eastern civilization. It is a fictional story that was sown in the 17th century, undergoing a certain transformation process, and brought to fruition in the early 20th century by an American coffee expert who desired the commercial use of coffee drinks.