Cultural practices (was: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython (fwd))

[Geeta Bharathan]

On 20 Oct 2000, Cameron Laird wrote:

> Various governments restricted the escape of coffee
> cultivation from their control, and it might not have
> arrived in India successfully until the mid-seventeenth
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> century. 

I assume you mean cultivation? Would you have a source on this?

It is said to have been introduced by a Muslim pilgrim into India in the
14th century [e.g. Hobson Jobson: Grigg, Nilagiri Man. 483; Rice, Mysore
i. 162, re-iterated by Achaya]. 

The pilgrim is supposed to have brought in some precious number of seeds
(7, I believe) and planted them somewhere in the hills of southwestern
India. An Arab introduction of coffee into the southwestern coast matches
with the way coffee is made today in the state of Kerala--by boiling the
coffee powder.

However, coffee is made by filtering in the other southern states where it
tends to be drunk. I've always thought that this latter practise might
have come with extensive cultivation in the hills of the state of
Karnataka (presumably introduced by the British?)

Any light anyone can throw on this?

--Geeta