Many an independent coffee house features a Kaldi’s Blend. If you asked ten different baristas what was in the Kaldi’s Blend you would most likely get ten different responses. It may be a blend of any two varietals. There may be a third in for fun.

Is it any wonder? I roasted a few batches in my time. Here’s a secret of the trade- there can be a rotating selection of coffees made up to create any blend’s flavor profile. In other words, if Kaldi’s Blend tastes like Kaldi’s blend this week, who cares if there was Bolivian in it before and now its a Nicaraguan?

However, all this Kaldi’s confusion starts at the beginning, whenever that was. A look into my coffee books, the internet and a variety of articles yielded ten versions of the Myth of Kaldi. They are collected below.

• The Legend of Kaldi – Just Ethiopian Coffees
• Kaldi And The Dancing Goats: How One Boy “Discovered” Coffee (allthatsinteresting.com)
• Kaldi (his dancing goats) and the Origin of Coffee – Bean on a Bike (olisipo.coffee)
• History of coffee | Origin, Discovery, & Facts | Britannica
• The Origin of Coffee: Kaldi and the Dancing Goats (coffeecrossroads.com)
• The Legend of the Dancing Goats: The Discovery of Coffee (thatscoffee.com)
• The Complete History Of Coffee – by dripped.coffee
• Kaldi – Wikipedia
• Story Time – The Legend Of Kaldi & The Berry Eating Goats – Chino Product
• The Origin of Coffee: Ethiopia or Yemen (thespruceeats.com)
• And one of Khalid: St. Yared Coffee and Tea (styaredcuisine.com)

Even though I worked in coffee for over two decades, I had never given the myth much thought. Maybe I was the only coffee lover not to. Anyway, I first saw it explained in detail few years ago in Stewart Lee Allen’s fabulous book, The Devil’s Cup.