Botanical evidence indicates that coffeea arabica originated on the plateaus of central Ethiopia, several thousand feet about sea level where it still grows wild.

Some time around 500AD it is thought the plant was sent to Yemen, where, by the sixth century it was being cultivated.

Coffee was primarily consumed in the Islamic world, where it originated, and was directly related to religious practices – originally in Yemen’s Sufi monastaries.



Coffee was introduced to Constantinople in 1453, where the Turks added clove, cardamom, cinnamon and anise. The world’s first coffee shop “Kiva Han” opened in 1475. Turkish law made it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with sufficient coffee.

However, Arabia and Muslim Africa kept a monopoly on coffee production. Laws forbade the export of fertile beans.