When friends got more friendly

The legend has it that, during his journey towards Ethiopia, Yemenite mystic Abu al-Hasan noticed a charming effervescency in birds. Upon trying the berries that the birds had been eating, he experienced the same vigor. As the word began to spread, coffee began its magnificent journey throughout the world.   From Yemen it soon spread to Mecca and Medina, the birthplace of two most essential features of courtesy – hospitality and companionship. From Muslim world coffee spread to Italy then to rest of Europe, Indonesia and America. Wherever it arrived it only added to the gracefulness of native hospitality by merging with causerie alongside traditional food and confectionary.   As time went on, coexistence between coffee and socializing gave life to coffeehouse. Masters and servants found repose in it, blacks and whites, oldsters and young men. It came to be a lost piece e every gregarious man, attached to him to never depart again.   In Europe’s coffeehouses, just like their Middle Eastern counterparts, the people met not to drink and sing, but to exchange ideas, to discuss poetry, philosophy, politics science. In every place, coffeehouse became a popular meeting place for intellectuals, writers, and publishers. In Paris, Apollinaire, Giacometti, Hemingway, Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir visited the Cafe de Flore frequently. The oldest coffee house in Paris, Cafe Procope, was frequented by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander von Humboldt and George Sand. In Rome, visitors to the Caffe Greco, near the Spanish Steps, included Goethe, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Stendhal and Liszt. Writers and artists frequently enjoyed the artistic atmosphere of the Cafe Hawelka in Vienna. Today’s coffeehouse holds on to the tradition established by past coffeehouse. Thus, after home and workplace, coffeehouse became third most frequented and approved place. Depending on country and region, coffeehouse adopted variations. In Kosova, this tradition of “a third place” is inherited by Isa, Besim and Driton at Ma Belle Coffe & Cake House, which is french for My Beautiful. By interlacing Isa’s finesse in making cakes, Besim’s sense of qualitative coffee and hospitality, and a presentation of exotic companionship spirit from Driton, now you also have opportunity to be part of this great historic journey.