Where Every Cup Tells a Story

Origins

An Arab Legacy

Coffee's story begins in the Ethiopian highlands, where legend says a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his flock's unusual energy after eating red berries from a particular tree. The plant — Coffea arabica — was native to these lands, but it was on the Arabian Peninsula that it would change the world forever.

By the 9th century, Yemeni traders had begun cultivating coffee, and by the 15th century, Sufi monks in Yemen were brewing it to stay awake during night prayers. The first coffeehouses — qahveh khaneh — opened in Mecca and Cairo and quickly became hubs of political debate, music, and intellectual discourse. So threatening were these social clubs that coffee was briefly banned by Ottoman rulers in the 16th century.

European traders, fascinated by the drink they called "the wine of Arabia," carried it home in the 17th century. Venetian merchants opened Europe's first coffeehouse in 1645, and the rest, as they say, is history brewed in a cup.