A Short History of Coffee

Coffee's story runs from a semi-legendary discovery in the Ethiopian highlands through Sufi monasteries in Yemen, Ottoman coffeehouses and European trade, into colonial plantations that reshaped entire economies, arriving in Jamaica by around 1728, before settling into the mass-market, then specialty-driven, coffee culture familiar today.

Did a Goat Herder Named Kaldi Discover Coffee?

The best-known coffee origin story involves an Ethiopian goat herder whose animals grew energetic after eating berries from a certain shrub, a tale usually attached to the name Kaldi. It makes a good story, but it is exactly that: a legend, not a documented event. The earliest known version of it appears in a 1671 text by Antoine Faustus Nairon, a Maronite scholar, and the herder isn't even named in that earliest telling; "Kaldi" was attached to the story only in the 20th century, according to Wikipedia's history of coffee entry.

How Did Coffee Spread Through Yemen and the Sufis?

Coffee's documented history begins centuries later and an ocean away from that legend, in 15th-century Yemen. By the late 1400s, coffee drinking was well established among Sufi religious communities there, who drank it to stay alert through night-long devotional prayers and chants, using it, in one description, almost as a tool for spiritual focus rather than simple refreshment.

From Yemen's Sufi lodges, coffee drinking spread outward along regional trade and pilgrimage routes, carried by travelers who had picked up the habit and brought it home. For more on this origin, see our guide to Yemeni coffee.

How Did Ottoman Coffeehouses Change Coffee's Role?

The coffeehouse as a public institution took shape in the Ottoman world. Istanbul's first coffeehouse opened in 1554, founded by two merchants from Aleppo and Damascus named in historical accounts as Hakem and Shems, according to Wikipedia. Similar houses soon flourished in Mecca and Cairo, turning coffee drinking from a private or devotional habit into a fully social one; coffeehouses became places to talk, do business, hear music and follow the latest news, a role they would keep as the custom spread.

When Did Coffee Reach Europe?

Coffee reached Europe by the mid-1600s. Venice is generally credited with the continent's first coffeehouse, around 1645, followed quickly by England: Oxford's opened in 1650, and London's, at St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill, in 1652, according to Wikipedia's history of coffee entry. Within decades, coffeehouses had become fixtures of European city life, associated with debate, news and early journalism much as Ottoman coffeehouses had been.

How Did Colonial Plantations Spread Coffee Around the World?

European colonial powers turned coffee from a traded commodity into a plantation crop grown far from its African and Arabian origins. The Dutch began cultivating coffee on Java starting in 1658, eventually building the island into one of the two suppliers, alongside Suriname, that met nearly all of Europe's coffee demand by the early 1700s. France carried coffee to the Caribbean when naval officer Gabriel de Clieu brought seedlings to Martinique in 1720, and Brazil received its first coffee plants around 1727, reportedly smuggled in from French Guiana, the start of what would become the world's largest coffee industry.

Jamaica's coffee history began around the same period. The island's coffee industry is usually dated to 1728, commonly credited to governor Sir Nicholas Lawes, who experimented with the crop on his own estate, though some sources give 1721 instead, according to Wikipedia's entry on Lawes. Within a few generations, Jamaica's Blue Mountains had developed the reputation for mild, low-bitterness coffee that endures today, and that colonial-era start is still felt in how the coffee is regulated: Jamaica's coffee authority now requires anything sold as "Jamaica Blue Mountain Blend" to contain at least 30 percent Blue Mountain coffee, a rule dating only to 2018 but tracing back to the same 18th-century plantation economy.

What Are the "Waves" of Modern Coffee?

Coffee historians and industry writers often describe the industry's more recent history in "waves." A first wave, running roughly from the 19th century through the mid-20th, prized convenience and consistency over origin; instant coffee, canned grocery-store coffee and diner coffee were its hallmarks. A second wave began in the late 1960s with companies including Peet's Coffee & Tea and, soon after, Starbucks, which introduced American consumers to origin-specific beans and Italian-style espresso drinks.

A third wave, whose terminology dates to around 1999 though its roots reach back further, treats coffee more like wine: sourced from named farms rather than whole countries, roasted to highlight a bean's own character rather than to standardize flavor across batches. That shift toward transparency and origin is part of why buyers now pay close attention to exactly where, and by whom, their coffee was grown, and why single-estate origins with a long documented history, Blue Mountain among them, carry more weight with today's buyers than a generic country-of-origin label ever did.