However, it's largely believed that coffee beans were originally exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Later, Yemeni traders brought coffee plants back to their homeland and began to grow them there.
Likely carried over the Red Sea by Ethiopian invaders, the plant became a foundational aspect of Islamic culture once on the Arabian peninsula. It is the favorable growing conditions of the Yemenese highlands which attributes the name to coffee lover's beloved species: coffea arabica.
In 1450, Sufi monks in Yemen were the first to cultivate coffee plants and brew the drink we know today as coffee.
Popular Indian lore says that on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 17th century Baba Budan, a revered Sufi saint from Karnataka state, discovered for himself the wonders of coffee. In his eagerness to grow coffee himself at home, he smuggled seven coffee beans out of the Yemeni port of Mocha which were hidden in his beard.
Most agree that the original coffee plants were native to the western regions of Ethiopia. Coffee was recorded as a beverage as early as the 6th century, utilized by the Ottoman Empire. It was in Yemen, however, that these plants were finally cultivated and developed into the beans and beverage that we know today.
But coffee is deeply connected to the country's history and the world owes much of its coffee culture to the little-known country. Whilst the coffee tree has its roots in Ethiopia, the coffee drink originated in Yemen and up until the early 1700s, Yemen was the world's sole exporter of coffee.
Notes. Mocha-Java is the world's oldest recorded coffee blend. The Starbucks version is authentic, combining wet-processed coffee from Java with dry-processed coffee from Yemen.
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 founded in Ethiopia by Kaldi, an Ethiopian goat herder, around 800 AD.
The New World
In the mid-1600's, coffee was brought to New Amsterdam, later called New York by the British. Though coffee houses rapidly began to appear, tea continued to be the favored drink in the New World until 1773, when the colonists revolted against a heavy tax on tea imposed by King George III.
There is scant documentary evidence of coffee use before the early 1500s, but historians have found that there was a small-scale trade in coffee between Ethiopia and Yemen starting in the middle of the fifteenth century. Apparently, coffee was harvested from wild bushes in Ethiopia and transported across the Red Sea.
Yemeni coffee is of superb quality due to its traditional, natural farming techniques that date back over 500 years. Premium Yemen coffee beans are considered by many to be among the best on the global market.
Although a beverage made from the wild coffee plant seems to have been first drunk by a legendary shepherd on the Ethiopian plateau, the earliest cultivation of coffee was in Yemen and Yemenis gave it the Arabic name qahwa, from which our words coffee and cafe both derive.
Some historians believe coffee was introduced to the Arabian peninsula circa 675 AD. It is certain that by the middle of the 15th century, coffee was in use in Yemen's Sufi monasteries.
In Yemen, the coffee harvesting season starts in November and lasts until late January. One of the key locations is the Manakhah region, which is located over 100km west of the capital Sanaa. The region is known for its lush green mountains and agricultural terraces.
It was not until 1524 the ban on coffee consumption was lifted. Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el-Imadi, the grand scholar of Sulat Selim I's reign in the Ottoman Empire, issued a fatwa declaring coffee acceptable. To this day, coffee remains halal and is consumed by all Muslims worldwide.
The terrain often results in low crop yields, while the traditional processing takes longer and tends to produce fewer beans from what was grown. More so, international demand is high, and the combination of low supply and high demand can make Yemeni coffee very expensive.
What Did People Drink Before Coffee? While tea has been around since before our favorite goat herder happened upon the coffee bean tree, there were other drinks that were commonplace for morning consumption even before tea. Wine and beer were seen as breakfast drinks since ancient Greek times.
The person most commonly credited with the introduction is Spaniard Juan Antonio Garcia. After its arrival coffee was not initially widely adopted, as chocolate and other options such as atole, a corn-based beverage, were already popular stimulant drinks.
It is believed that the coffee plant was first introduced to Vietnam in 1857 by French missionaries, but the first coffee plantations were only set up in 1888 at the Ninh Bình and Quảng Bình provinces of Tonkin.
Think you drink a lot of coffee? Think again. Honore de Balzac, a nineteenth-century French writer, drank the equivalent of around 47 cups of coffee A DAY for 25 years. Yes, that's right.
The earliest credible sources of coffee mentioned as a beverage comes from Sufi monasteries in Yemen in the 15th century, though there's reason to believe non-Muslim Arabians had been making wine with the coffee cherries for over 200 years already.
The history of coffee dates back to centuries of old oral tradition in modern day Jimma, Ethiopia. Coffee was first cultivated in Yemen, then later introduced to other countries. In the 15th century, Sufi monasteries in Yemen employed coffee as an aid to concentration during prayers.
The majority of specialty coffee today is Coffea Arabica. The term Coffea arabica comes from Yemen. Be it referred to as Mocha, Mocca or Mokka... you're probably familiar with the term Mocha. Mocha has been heavily commercialized into a brand that implies a certain chocolate taste.
The main varieties of coffee grown in Yemen are Odaini, Tufahi, Dawayri, Bura'I and Jaadi – Yemeni women make up for 75% of the coffee farmers. Each of these has a distinctive taste profile which makes Yemeni coffee even more unique.
Yemen coffee is rare and difficult to source. It has an extremely unique flavor profile and a journey that is just as unique. From its conception, Yemen coffee is cared for by hands that are not just looking after their livelihood, but also carrying on centuries of tradition.