It?s hard to imagine a world without coffee. It?s one of the most actively traded commodities in the world. The origins of coffee drinking are lost in the mists of time. \r\n The most popular (and almost certainly untrue) legend is that of the merry berry-munching goats of an Abyssinian herder called Kaldi. Noticing how lively his charges were after eating the berries, Kaldi took them to a local monastery. The monks decided the berries must be evil and, in an attempt to destroy them, threw them on the fire. \r\n The heavenly aroma they emitted as they darkened and caramelised in the flames had the monks feverishly raking out the now roasted beans and ? possibly in response to divine inspiration ? grinding them and mixing them with boiling water.