this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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[–] Skua@kbin.earth 223 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Isn't that like 4,000 years before the first records of coffee being prepared as a drink?

Edit: upon a little research, the tablet in the image is a version of the Instructions of Shuruppak. The oldest known copies we have, of which the depicted tablet is one, do indeed date back to around 2,600 BCE. However, the text is supposed to be the words of an ancient king given as advice to his son much earlier. In fact, the first part of the text is, "In those days, in those far remote days, in those nights, in those faraway nights, in those years, in those far remote years, at that time the wise one who knew how to speak in elaborate words lived in the Land." The speaker is said to be the son of king Ubara-Tutu, who is mentioned on the Sumerian king list as having reigned for over 18,000 years prior to the great flood of Sumerian myth. We can't really put any actual dates on that and have no archaeological evidence for basically anything relevant, but some archaeologists date it around some known localised flooding around 400 years earlier than the writing of this tablet

Anyway there's nothing in there about coffee or even about the habits of The Youth These Days, but it does contain such pearls of ancient wisdom as "you make bad decisions when you are drunk" and "hurting yourself with an axe is bad actually". There is a missing chunk that mentions beer and the god Ninkasi, herself associated with brewing and beer, so it's possible that there was something about the flavouring of beer in that bit, but the trasnslation I'm looking at makes no mention of it

https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section5/tr561.htm

Edit again: also the original poster was joking

[–] Klear@quokk.au 35 points 3 months ago

That guy was ahead of his time.

[–] bier@feddit.nl 7 points 3 months ago

Thanks, I also couldn't really believe this was real. A quick google search tells me

Ethiopia is widely considered to be the epicentre of where coffee came from. If you've ever googled “coffee history”, you will have come across the famous story of how coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by Kaldi, an Ethiopian goat herder, around 800 AD.

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[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 43 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

I want this to be true, but it is so on the nose it would be great to know for sure. Any sauce for this one?

(I tried searching but only found walls of reposted shitty copper reviews)

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 50 points 3 months ago

Coffee was "discovered" around the 9th century AD, so I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on this one.

[–] TuEstUnePommeDeTerre@lemmy.blahaj.zone 40 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The tablet matches the image on the Wikipedia page for the Instructions of Shuruppak

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Nice catch! Thanks for the link

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago
[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah, but there IS an example of "humans have always been Like This":

insults and stupid speaking receive the attention of the land

(seriousness of slander intensifying)

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[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago

iirc coffee was not a thing in sumeria 2600 BC

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think it's just a joke, rather than a real reference.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 3 points 3 months ago

A joke... in a meme!?

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 3 points 3 months ago

Same outcome, just one Twitter post and a blog post and nothing else.

[–] TomMasz@piefed.social 32 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I know this is a joke, but you really haven't had bad coffee until you've had percolated coffee. We live in enlightened times.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I know 2 people who actually enjoy percolated coffee. They scare me.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] shane@feddit.nl 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

For people saying "it's fine", they are probably not talking about the same thing

I assume you mean this monstrosity:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_percolator

Which is indeed a crime against humanity. My parents used one and kept me from realizing that coffee is delicious until I was 18 years old or so.

The other people probably mean this simple yet effective device:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot

Especially the comment about 60 million Italians.

The moka pot is great and I use it to make my own latte every day.

[–] TomMasz@piefed.social 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

YES! This is exactly what I was referring to, not the Moka pot. I guess the percolator has faded from our collective memories.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago

People would probably recognize it in its more common form

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[–] guy@piefed.social 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Percolated coffee is totally fine?

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

you're not a coffee snob. Sorry, "connoisseur".

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 32 points 3 months ago

Okay, Sumer.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

TIL there were hipster baristas in ancient Sumeria

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

And Sumerian Karens

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The world has basically been in decline since before life began. Or at least that's how some people perceive it.

[–] FantasmaNaCasca@lemmy.world 29 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.'"

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 months ago

We could all use some more Douglas Adams in these trying times.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 months ago

now we all strive for money. WTF is money? It's data on a hard drive, and yet we will die to protect it. Money was the worst invention ever and it's gone downhill even faster since then.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 months ago

Nahh, we've been going backwards since agriculture

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[–] ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Winding the clock forward, our coffee must be even weaker, weaker beyond words. Can you imagine how amazing coffee must have been in his youth?

[–] Wolf@lemmy.today 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The coffee in his day would wake up before you, make itself, and then wake you up by pouring itself down your throat.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

And his grandfather's coffee was so strong and pure that just the smell of it had the same effect as drinking his grandson's (which would get brought up every single time coffee was mentioned).

And I don't mean the smell of it being brewed or roasted, but just the smell of the raw beans. Roasting and brewing came from someone chasing the old bean high from their youth.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 months ago

Same as it ever was

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

His lawn, get off it.

[–] waigl@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

I thought coffee was only discovered much later in present day Ethiopia. Are you sure he wasn't talking about beer or wine?

[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If god intended my coffee to be mixed with any of that gunk, it woulda been grown on the coffee tree that way.........

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[–] Wolf@lemmy.today 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

AHHH SNL used to be so good. That's how it was in our day and we liked it!!!!!

/s /!s /s

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[–] Catpuccino@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] JargonWagon@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 3 months ago

So the people who drink their coffee black have always been the minority? 🤔

[–] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Kids start drinking watered down fru-fru coffee, right after the last early dynastic king falls and Sumer is taken over by Lagash?

Sounds to me like watered down coffee is a pretty reliable indicator for the collapse of the current state.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago
[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm an American in 2025, I'm just glad I can still kind of afford the very cheapest coffee I can find. Not gonna complain too much about the taste as long as I get my sweet coffee buzz in the morning.

[–] Magnum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago
[–] humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This must just be a "chunk" of the "script" how do scholars glean that much context out of those crude symbols?

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