Imagine going without a coffee for 13 years!

Well, that was what happened in the Middle East in 1511 when coffee drinking was banned by the Meccan governor Khair Beg. He was an unpopular leader who was fearful that people were always plotting against him. He believed that people meeting in coffee houses to drink coffee would plan his downfall and removal from power, so instead he banned them from drinking coffee and banned the coffee houses too.

Drinking coffee was declared to be sinful and drinking what is today’s the world’s most drunk drink would not be allowed for 13 long years until 1524 when by order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I rescinded the law.

It didn’t end well for Khair Beg who was executed after the Sultan proclaimed coffee to be sacred, as do we here at UKVending.