Gallstones And Coffee! Who Would Have Thought?
Due to the fear of theft de Clieu located his precious plant within view on his estate, surrounded by thorn bushes and guarded round the clock by slaves until it reached maturity. The first harvest was a great success. Soon after, a terrible cyclone uprooted all the islands cocoa trees, closely followed by an earthquake in 1727 which submerged the land and destroyed the native people's main source of income. The coffee crop took the place of the cocoa trees and began to thrive. In fact just 50 years later the one little seedling imported by de Clieu had produced 18,791,680 coffee plants in Martinique alone! Coffee plantations were being introduced throughout the islands of the Caribbean and at some point the Brazilian government sent a spy to steal a plant from the French. From this act grew the World's largest coffee empire. It may be a little romantic to believe that most of the World's coffee is descended from de Clieu's little seedling but his endeavours cannot be u...
