Where on Arda did Hobbits get coffee? Where in Middle-Earth would support the coffee plants? In our world, they're from southern Africa and tropical Asia. What part of Middle-Earth is similar enough? (Yes it's in the book, every time I read it I'm shocked). Can anyone help?
-"Already it had almost become a throng. Some called
for ale, and some for porter, and one for coffee, and all of them for
cakes; so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while.
A big jug of coffee bad just been set in the hearth, the seed-cakes
were gone,"
-"And more cakes-and ale-and coffee, if you don't mind," called
the other dwarves through the door."
In "The Flora of Middle Earth" By Walter Judd in the entry for Coffee, he writes that while Tolkien in later edits for The Hobbit deleted tomatoes (a original product of the Americas), he did not delete the mention of coffee. He considered the "Presence of coffee in Middle Earth as representing an independent, and earlier, introduction from the mountains of northeastern Africa--a plant brought into lands controlled by Gondor as a result of its trade with Haradwaith and Khand." He could more justify the existence of Coffee in the imaginative world more than he could tomatoes.
This!
My best guess is that coffee would have been exported from Harad which is the Middle-earth equivalent to Africa.
Alternately, coffee could have originally been brought over from Númenor; but even then in could have thrived in Harad.
I'm sorry, but where's Harad? I haven't seen it on the Map of Middle Earth and the Maps of Arda are vague.
@ShireofMiddleEarth Harad is south of Gondor and Mordor. The Girdle of Arda (the Equator) runs right through it. It even looks a bit like modern Africa. Umbar is part of the same continent.
EDIT (06/02): If we overlay a map of Middle-earth onto a map of Europe and Africa, one could argue that most of Southern Gondor and Near Harad would today be beneath the Mediterranean Sea.
@andrewlaubacher Is there a full proper map of Arda?
Could Bilbo have brewed dandelion root coffee? I'm sure dandelions are common in the Shire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtq8h2RGMSw
That's interesting. :)
That would be more like an herbal tea though.
Where was coffee mentioned in the books? I vaguely remember the hobbits drinking tea, but not coffee.
Bilbo prepares a big jug of coffee for his guests in "The Unexpected Party" in The Hobbit. This was just after the arrival of Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin and Gloin.
When I first read it I was so confused a coffee being in the time of Middle Earth it stuck in my head. I remembered it the other day and thought I'd ask :) .
Thanks. Apparently, Gandalf mentions a pop-gun as well. Quite a few anachronisms in The Hobbit. But let's keep in mind this story wasn't connected to the Legendarium yet. Note that "Middle-earth" isn't mentioned anywhere in the book.
No, I don't think Gandalf says that; I recall the line as an insertion by the unnamed narrator. Some of those anachronisms (like "pop-gun") are simply narrative embellishments which can be easily ignored. The book's 'narrator' (the presumed 'translator') gets a bit precious at times.
Actually, it is a direct quote from Gandalf.
"Carefully! Carefully!" he said. "It is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting on the mat, and then open the door like a pop-gun! Let me introduce Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and especially Thorin!"
However, you can just dismiss this anachronism as an expedient way to get the point across to the audience.
As for coffee, it doesn't really appear anywhere else in the novel. You can just say it's some Hobbit brew made from moss or something. "Coffee" is just another way to explain it to the audience.
And the narrator getting "precious" at times fits right in with the the story, no? 😉
Okay, Gandalf did say that. Or at least that's how the line was 'translated' by our narrator. I'm perfectly happy to let the hobbits have their coffee; I just assume it was imported ultimately from Harad. After all, that is around where coffee originated in the real world.