Kaat (Celastrus eatha edulis) is a shrub or small tree which grows at an altitude of about five thousand feet in the lower mountains of Yemen, especially on the slopes of Jebel Sohr near Taiz. It is uncertain whether the plant is indigenous, but if introduced into Yemen from Africa, it came very early, with coffee, when the Abyssinian conquest caused the fall of the Himyarite empire.
Kaat is planted from shoots which are left to grow for three years, then all the leaves and buds are pulled off except on a few twigs; these develop the following year into juicy shoots which are cut off, tied in bundles, wrapped in grass to preserve their moisture, and sold under the name of moubarreh. The second crop is of better quality, and is called mouthanee. A small bundle, kilwet, sells at Taiz for about five cents, and a larger quantity, yet scarcely a handful, called zirbet, for ten cents. Only the leaves and young twigs are masticated, but I have seen the poor glad to pick up even the castaway dry leaves and branches to get what comfort they could out of them.
The taste of the leaves is slightly bitter and astringent, very like that of the peach leaf. It has stimulative properties, produces wakefulness, and in large quantities hallucination; it is said to preserve the teeth, and some use it as an aphrodisac. All Arabs claim that it gives wonderful power of endurance, and that with their kaat and tobacco they can do without food on long journeys. Every one, young and old, Arab, Jew or Turk, uses it, and many use it in incredible quantities. One soldier told me that he spent a rupee (33 cents) a day for his kaat, and the Cadi of Taiz pays twenty dollars a day for this luxury,—his household, however, is as large as the koran and divorce can make it.
The Ottoman government receives twenty-five per cent customs on the market price of the plant in addition to the land tax on kaat culture. The total revenue from this source is considerable as can be judged from the fact that at Taiz, a town of perhaps five thousand population, all the other taxes are farmed for ten thousand dollars per annum, while the daily sale of kaat amounts to over three hundred dollars!
The kaat market is open from early morning, when the fresh bundles came on donkeys and camels, but the busiest time is in the afternoon; for the proper thing is to eat kaat just before sunset, and to invite guests to chew leaves an hour or two before dinner. The sellers sit in the open air, and are mostly women. In their rather picturesque costumes, unveiled, they sit the long day, with a basket of the green luxury before them; sprinkling their ware from time to time to keep it moist; untying a score of bundles to satisfy some proud epicure who tastes before he takes; haggling over the price of a damaged bundle with some soldier; and again swearing, as only Arabs can, to the genuineness of the kind in question—for kaat has six distinct flavors and varieties, each with a special name, and alas for the slave who was sent for one and returns with another. Sometimes there is close dealing, or on a rainy day “a corner” in the market, or some wicked urchin runs off with a stolen bundle, and at such times all the women talk at once, and their uproar is only rivalled in Yemen by the Jews’ synagogue service. The kaat market at 4 P. M. is indeed a picture, full of color and pose and motion worthy the brush of an artist; its like can only be seen in the villages of lower Yemen, and among the many surprises to the traveller in this Switzerland of Arabia nothing is at first sight stranger and more ludicrous than to see sober Arabs sit down in groups at the close of day and, as Nebuchadnezzar of old, “eat grass like oxen.”
According to an Arab history kaat was used by the Arabs before the coffee-plant became naturalized in the highlands of Yemen. At present coffee and kaat grow together. Both are considered lawful to Moslems, and Yemen’s chief source of wealth is its coffee export. The principal districts for coffee-culture stretch north of Taiz to Lohaia and Kankaban and Sana, and the variety of the product depends mostly on the elevation of the plantation. There are three distinct stages in its culture. First the seed is prepared by removing the shell or pericarp; it is then mingled with wood ashes and dried in the shade. Then the seed is planted in prepared beds of rich soil, mingled with manure; the beds are covered with branches of trees to protect the young plants from the heat of the sun and they are watered every six or seven days. Lastly after six weeks the plants are carefully removed from the ground and planted in rows at a distance of two or three feet from each other. After two or three years the coffee-tree begins to yield.
The gardens in Yemen are all constructed in terraces along the mountain-side and are exceedingly beautiful when the plant is in full bloom. When the berries are ripe they are plucked from the tree and dried in the sun; afterwards packed in gunnybags they are sent to the coast. The Arabs of Yemen seldom use the bean in making coffee but utilize the shell or husk; the beverage is less strong, more sweet and of course cheaper. Coffee is sown in March, budding begins in May, and the crop is gathered in September. A great deal of Yemen coffee finds its way overland to the interior of Arabia in addition to the export to Aden and Hodeida; Mokha was once the great emporium but has utterly decayed and now consists of only a few houses in ruined condition and a dilapidated Mosque.