Once upon a time ....

      Once upon a time there was a mighty Roman Warrior. Because of his skills, he soon became the leader of the Roman Army. Before every battle, the Roman Emperor asked him for advice.

          Life was almost perfect for the Warrior, he had a lovely and clever wife, and he was very proud because his Emperor trusted him. But there was still something missing: a child… Each time he returned home from a battle, he made sacrifices in Proserpina’s honor in order to get a child.

       One day, as he returned home, his wife told him that Gods blessed her and that she was expecting a child. After 9 month, the surprise arrived: there were two boys instead of one. From that moment, the Warrior thought that he was the happiest man in the world…

        Seeing how happy he was, Mars, the God of war, put him to a test: soon after he celebrated the 5-th anniversary of his sons, he began to realize that they were very lazzy…and powerless. Since then, the Warrior became more and more sad…after every battle he begged Mars to help him with his children. 

       One day, after a rough battle that took place somewhere between “Arabia Felix” (Happy Arabia, or Yemen nowadays) and Ethiopia, the warrior was mortally wounded. Feeling that he was dying, the Warrior asked Mars, last time, to have mercy and to protect his children. Mars transformed his body into a tree with red small fruits. Then he told to the Warrior’s wife to roast the fruits and to make a potion from it. From that day, both powerless teens drank every morning a cup of potion, and they became as faster and skilful as their dead father.

    And this happened long before Kaldi, the goatherd, discovered the coffee tree…
by Diana (”Food for life”)