Coffee!

[Birdland]

Tolkien was dealing with Westron words that didn't have an exact English equivalent!! So he just translated them to the closest one he could find. Perhaps, coffee wasn't exactly what we think of today, but some kind of herbal drink that looked and functioned the same way.

During the Civil War, the Confederates desperately sought a suitable coffee substitute. Dried and/or parched sweet potato, peas, okra seeds, hemp seeds (my vote), and rye were all thought to be pretty close to the real thing. Since the above could all be considered fine Shire agricultural products, I'd have to say that there's no telling what them Hobbits were drinkin'!

The Southrons with their slaves harvesting the beans on huge plantation-type farms owned by wealthy sahibs seems much more coherent and fitting.

Since we wouldn't want to consider Hobbits to be having dealings with the Enemy, perhaps a source of the "real Rio" would be the Kingdom of Dor-en-Ernil. It's far enough south to grow coffee, and with the topography, they could even have "mountain grown" beans.

Unless...could it be that Isengar Took, the first Hobbit to go to sea, was actually doing a little blockade running? Always wondered how the Tooks came by their dough.

Anyway, for the sake of the Hobbit's sleep patterns, I hope they had decaf. (Note the time of this post. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] )