The history of coffee is a fascinating story. The bean has traveled the globe for centuries, being smuggled out of strict countries and stolen from royalty, and has changed entire nations and economies. It’s remarkable how one small bean taken from tiny trees in Ethiopia could become the 2nd largest commodity traded in the world today.
Have you ever wondered where coffee came from, where this little bean got its start? Get ready to be taken on a journey through time and across continents.
Where Did Coffee Originate?
Where did coffee originate? Well, that’s the easy bit. It came from Ethiopia in the beginning. But how did the bean make it to every corner of the globe? That’s what we are going to dig into.
After a slow discovery in Africa, coffee went west into Europe to be discovered and coveted by the newer civilizations, as well as east into Asia, where it was planted and harvested. There’s a lot to cover, so grab a cup of coffee and read on.
How Was Coffee Discovered?
(The Story of Ethiopia And The Dancing Goats)
Ethiopian dancing goats
The most popular origin story of the beloved bean starts with Kaldi and his goats (1) in 700 AD. Kaldi, an Ethiopian (formerly Abyssinia) goat herder, stumbled on his goats, acting quite strange.
They were dancing. This definitely wasn’t normal. He discovered that they were eating red berries and concluded that this fruit was the cause of this odd behavior.
After stumbling upon this magic fruit, he shared his findings with a monk, who was ecstatic to find something that would help him stay awake all night as he prayed.
Monk
The result was a wonderful, pleasing aroma, which became the world’s first roasted coffee. Shortly after this, the beans were ground and boiled to produce what we know today as coffee.
Another story, however, claims that Kaldi shared these beans with a monk who disapproved of their use and threw them into the fire.
The result was a wonderful, pleasing aroma which became the world’s first roasted coffee. Shortly after this, the beans were ground and boiled to produce what we know today as coffee.
Across The Waters Onto The Middle East
Though the story of Kaldi cannot be proven to be true, one thing is certain: coffee came from Ethiopia.
Ethiopia
Another thing we know for sure is where it went next. Coffee made its way north, across the Red Sea into Yemen in the 15th Century.
Africa to Yemen
The port at which the beans first arrived was called “Mocha.” Due to the growing popularity of coffee and the shipment of coffee from the port city, Mocha became synonymous with coffee. So, any time you hear the term “mocha” when talking about coffee, you now know where that term originated. Coffee was grown in Yemen and became well-known in Egypt, Persia, and Turkey.
It was known as the “wine of Araby.” The beverage started to become a little too popular as coffee houses started to open up all around Arabia. These coffee houses were known as “Schools of the Wise” (2). These were the places you went to share and hear information. They became the epicenter of social activity. However, in the early 1500s, the court at Mecca declared coffee to be forbidden due to its stimulating effect.
The Wine of Araby
A similar thing happened in Cairo, Egypt, and in Ethiopia. All of these bans were eventually lifted, but coffee faced its fair share of persecution before that. Riots broke out in the Arab streets until justice was returned to the coffee-drinking people.
Into Europe And Asia
The course of history changes when the coffee bean spreads both east and west: East into India and Indonesia and West into Italy and onto the rest of Europe.
Asia’s Place In Coffee History
Arabia was the gatekeeper for coffee. If a country wanted coffee beans, they purchased them from Yemen. The authorities liked it that way and did everything to ensure that nobody could take fertile beans out of their control and plant the trees themselves.
Alas, along comes Baba Budan, a Sufi saint from India who was on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1670. Upon his return, Baba Budan smuggled some fertile beans back to India, where he began coffee cultivation.
yemen to India
These beans began large-scale coffee farming in Southern India, which is still producing plants today.
In the late 1600s, the Dutch finally started growing coffee. Decades earlier, the Dutch had smuggled coffee plants from Yemen in an attempt to grow the beans in Holland, but due to the cold weather, their cultivation scheme failed miserably.
Dutch smuggle coffee from yemen
This time, however, friends in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) sent coffee seedlings to the Dutch Governor of Java, Indonesia. While multiple natural disasters wiped out their first attempts at coffee cultivation, in 1704, more seedlings were planted, and coffee from Indonesia became a staple.