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Friday, August 1, 2014

Café Kaldi, Bangkok – An amazing story behind.

Logo
   As I live not too far away from Esplanade Mall, in Ratchada, I often patronize a coffee shop named Café Kaldi. It has many similarities with the notorious chain Starbucks. Apart from that, I had never made any other connection. I thought this brand was Japanese. The décor and the ambiance are nice. Their coffee is good and they serve a great choice of other drinks like smoothies or frappes. They also have some pastries and for lunch they serve salads or sandwiches as well. Their prices are cheaper than Starbucks. They provide free WiFi and power plugs for mobiles and laptops. (Starbucks make you pay for a WiFi connection when most places in Thailand provide it free of charge!)
Yesterday afternoon, I met with my former supervisor, whom I had in Laos when I was living there a few years back. He left Laos six years ago as he was posted in other countries. One of them was Ethiopia – a country, which is on my wish list of countries to visit. Of course, our conversation came to talk about Ethiopia. Like Thailand, this African country has never been colonized (except for a period of five years by Mussolini's Italian troops). Ethiopia is a very old kingdom that can be traced back as far as the Antiquity. It is the home of one of the oldest Christian churches, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Its capital, Addis Ababa is also the headquarters of the African Union (AU). But by all means, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. Coffea arabica originates in Ethiopia. According to a legend, the plant was accidentally discovered in the 9th century by a shepherd named Kaldi! And here is the connection! He had noticed the energizing effect the plant had on his goats. By the way, the Chinese have a similar story for tea. But the story of coffee is an interesting one. The port of Mocha in nearby Yemen was an old trading post on the sea routes between the West and the East, until a Dutchman thought of bringing some coffee plants to the Dutch island of Java. Later, at the Renaissance, it became a popular drink in Cairo first until the Ottomans started to import it to Turkey. As much of the exotic trade to Europe was in the hands of Venice (like silk before) and that the Venetian Republic had a foot in Constantinople, it was first imported to Italy. (As a matter of fact, the Moka pot was invented by an Italian in 1933). And if after Italy, you wonder why le café is such an important French beverage as well, here is a quick link. In 1686, a Sicilian named Francesco Procopio del Coltelli opened the first 'café' in Paris, Le Procope, considered as the oldest existing café frequented by many famous intellectuals.
Interior ambiance
   The fascinating story of coffee took us away from Café Kaldi. But here is a new turn to the whole story.
After the Ethiopian revolution, some rich families took refuge in the United States. While being there, Tsedey Asrat, founder & owner of Kaldis, was inspired by Starbucks. Many years later, upon returning to her home country, she had the idea of requesting a partnership with Starbucks. But the giant Seattle coffee brand turned her offer down. This is when she decided to create her own chain in Ethiopia using a logo and premises that had a close similarity with the American brand name! The success was immediate in Ethiopia. Starbucks fumed about the whole situation and brought the case to court. However, the Ethiopian judge dismissed the case!   
Esplanade outlet
I found this story absolutely amazing. So here we are in Bangkok, having already at least four outlets of Café Kaldis, the original brand of all coffees and not knowing anything about this story! Well, today I went back to Café Kaldi at Esplanade. I had already made a review for TripAdvisor a few years back. But I took a few pictures and decided to write about it straight away.

Christian Sorand
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