How Coffee Went From Ethiopian Highlands to the World's Cup

Few drinks carry as much layered history as coffee. What started as a wild shrub in the mountains of Ethiopia became, over several centuries, a global trade network that touched religion, empire, revolution and city life — and it remains one of the most consumed beverages on earth today.

Ethiopian origins and the Kaldi legend

According to the National Coffee Association (NCA), the most widely told origin story credits a 9th-century Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi, who noticed his goats became unusually energetic after eating berries from a certain tree. A local monastery abbot reportedly turned those berries into a drink meant to help him stay awake through long hours of evening prayer, and knowledge of the plant spread eastward from there, according to the NCA's history page.

The NCA notes this account is a legend rather than a documented historical record, but it reflects the plant's genuine botanical home: the wild Coffea arabica shrub, native to Ethiopia's highland forests.

Yemen, Sufi monasteries and the first coffeehouses

The documented history of coffee as a cultivated, traded crop begins on the Arabian Peninsula. By the 15th century, coffee was being grown in what is now Yemen, according to the NCA, and the beverage's spread is tied to Sufi religious communities, who used it to stay alert during nighttime prayer and recitation.

From Yemen, coffee drinking moved north and east. By the 16th century it had reached Iran, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. Public coffeehouses known as qahveh khaneh opened across these regions and became known, in the NCA's account, as 'schools of the wise' — places where people gathered to drink coffee, listen to music, play games and exchange news.

Resistance and acceptance in Europe

When coffee reached Europe in the 17th century, it met suspicion as well as enthusiasm. The NCA history recounts that some local clergy in Venice condemned the drink, reportedly calling it 'the bitter invention of Satan,' until Pope Clement VIII is said to have tasted it himself and approved of it — a story widely repeated in coffee histories, though it originates from tradition rather than a papal document.

European coffeehouses soon multiplied in cities such as London, Paris and Vienna. In England they earned the nickname 'penny universities,' because for the price of a cup a patron could sit and take part in conversation and debate. One of the best-documented examples of a coffeehouse shaping commerce is Edward Lloyd's establishment in London, out of which the insurance market Lloyd's of London grew, according to the NCA.

Colonial plantations and the spread to the Americas

European colonial powers moved to grow coffee themselves rather than rely on Arabian supply. The Dutch cultivated it successfully on the island of Java, in present-day Indonesia, and later combined Arabian Mocha beans with Javanese coffee to create one of the first known commercial blends, per the NCA's account.

Coffee reached the Americas in the 18th century through two frequently cited episodes: a seedling carried to the Caribbean island of Martinique by French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu in 1723, which the NCA credits as the source of millions of coffee trees across the Caribbean and Latin America, and the introduction of coffee to Brazil by Francisco de Mello Palheta, according to the same source. Brazil went on to become the world's largest coffee producer.

Coffee, tea and the American Revolution

In Britain's North American colonies, tea was the dominant hot beverage well into the 18th century. The NCA's history links a shift toward coffee to the political tensions culminating in the 1773 Boston Tea Party, after which drinking tea came to be seen by many colonists as an expression of loyalty to the British Crown, making coffee the more patriotic choice for some.

A widely repeated trade claim — and why it's wrong

Coffee is frequently described as the world's 'second-most traded commodity after oil.' The claim has circulated for decades, including in a 2017 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, where a Starbucks public-policy director repeated it, according to fact-checking organization PolitiFact.

PolitiFact rated the claim 'Pants on Fire,' its lowest rating for false statements. World Bank senior economist John Baffes told the organization that the statement may have been roughly true around 1970, but grains and metals have since overtaken coffee in trade value. PolitiFact cited figures putting global coffee exports at an estimated $19 billion to $23 billion a year, far below soybeans (about $57 billion), wheat (about $29 billion), aluminum (about $106 billion) and copper (about $104 billion).

Coffee's place in today's global economy

Despite not topping global trade-value rankings, coffee remains economically significant for producing countries. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) describes coffee as 'the most widely traded tropical product' and notes that up to 25 million farming households worldwide grow it, accounting for about 80% of global output. The FAO also identifies Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia as the largest producing countries, with the European Union and the United States as the largest consuming and importing markets.

The FAO adds that for many low-income producing countries, coffee exports remain an important source of foreign-currency earnings, even as the beverage's modern consumption has diversified through what the industry describes as successive 'waves' — from instant and mass-market coffee to coffeehouse chains and, more recently, specialty, single-origin coffee, per the NCA.