Coffee

Coffee is a beverage brewed from the roasted and ground seeds of tropical evergreen plants of African origin, and it ranks among the three most popular beverages in the world. Two plant species, Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, known as robusta, supply almost all of the coffee consumed worldwide.

The coffee plant is a woody shrub or small tree distinguished by glossy, elliptical leaves whose veins stand out prominently across the surface. Its flowers are white, star-shaped and fragrant, borne in clusters of two to nine, and they give way to two-seeded berries that ripen through a sequence of green, yellow and red. On older branches the bark develops a fissured texture. The genus name Coffea itself descends from the Arabic word kahwah, meaning beverage.

Coffea arabica is native to Ethiopia, yet it has been cultivated in Arabia for more than a thousand years.

The coffee plant is generally thought to be native to the Ethiopian plateau region known as Kefa, or Kaffa, though the precise history of its origin and domestication remains uncertain. A widely told legend concerns Kaldi the goatherd, who around 850 CE is said to have sampled the berries after observing his flock's strange antics. What is documented is that Ethiopian farmers have long used the dry, or natural, method, an ancient technique that dries whole coffee cherries in intense sunlight. After harvesting, many farmers spread the fresh-picked whole cherries on mats in the sun, turning them by hand at regular intervals over four weeks so that the coffee dries evenly.

Coffee was first adopted by members of the Shadhiliyya mystic order, established in Tunisia and then in Egypt in the 13th century, who promoted it as a valuable adjunct to their spiritual exercises. The Italian botanist Prospero Alpini traveled to Egypt in 1580 and, after returning to Europe, published observations that included a peculiar plant, the coffee bush. Alpini recorded that the Arabians and Egyptians made a decoction of coffee which they drank instead of wine, sold in all their public houses as wine was sold in Europe.

Despite threats of severe penalties, coffee drinking spread rapidly, giving rise to the coffeehouse; called qahveh khanehs, these establishments appeared in Mecca in the 15th century and in Constantinople, now Istanbul, in the 16th. From Yemen, fitfully and partially part of the Ottoman Empire, coffee spread to the overseas possessions of the Dutch, French, British and others, including Java, Surinam, Reunion, Martinique, India and Ceylon. Coffee was so important to Yemen that the national emblem shows an eagle whose chest bears a shield depicting a coffee plant.

Coffeehouses were suppressed from time to time on suspicion of being sites of sedition, yet even after repeated efforts they could not be shut down. They created a distinctive culture of intellectual exchange in which artists, craftsmen, poets, performers, merchants and bureaucrats mingled over conversation, board games, music, storytelling and poetry recitation. European coffeehouses, linked to the emergence of the public sphere and modern democratic values, are effectively descendants of this dynamic early modern Islamic coffeehouse culture.

Businesses emerged from specialized coffee houses: Lloyd's of London, the global insurance marketplace, began at Edward Lloyd's Coffee House. Colonial American coffeehouses followed the London model and became powerful social catalysts, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and the distribution of news.

Until the close of the 17th century the world's limited supply of coffee came almost entirely from Yemen; as the drink grew more popular, the plant spread to Java and the Indonesian archipelago in the 17th century and to the Americas in the 18th.

Coffee, tea and chocolate arrived in 17th-century Europe amid expanding exploration and trade, causing a near revolution in drinking habits and giving rise to social institutions such as the coffeehouse and the ritual of afternoon tea.

Tea remained the favored drink in the New World until King George III imposed a heavy tax in 1773; the protest that followed, the Boston Tea Party, forever changed Americans' beverage preference to coffee.

Emperor Menelik, who reigned from 1889 to 1913, drank coffee openly to encourage his Christian subjects to do the same, aiming to stimulate the domestic market and unite the nation; today about 40 per cent of Ethiopia's coffee is consumed locally. In 2010 the Kafa zone was included in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves; located about 460 km southwest of Addis Ababa, the Kafa reserve is the birthplace of wild arabica coffee and holds close to 5,000 wild varieties.

Coffee became a major crop in Brazil about the same time as cotton in the United States; by 1850 it had almost displaced sugar in the Sao Paulo region, and four times more slaves worked on coffee than on sugar. Cheap fertile land and slave labor allowed Brazilian coffee prices to plummet after 1820 and stay low until the last quarter of the century, creating supply-induced demand.

Even after its relative output diminished by the mid-1980s, coffee was the principal export of seven Latin American countries and the second export of another two, making it the continent's most important agricultural export after petroleum.

World coffee production for 2026/27 is forecast 10.8 million bags higher than the previous year at a record 189.7 million bags, driven by record output in Brazil, Ethiopia, Uganda and Vietnam. World consumption is forecast at a record 179.7 million 60-kg bags. Brazil's combined arabica and robusta harvest is forecast to rise 8.9 million bags to a record 71.9 million in the 2026/27 season, as arabica output rebounds from five years of underperformance. Vietnam's coffee production is forecast to increase 800,000 bags to a record 32.5 million on expanding area and higher yields. Ethiopia is forecast to increase coffee output by more than 500,000 bags to a record 12.1 million bags, with growth driven by replacing over half the cultivated area with higher-yielding varieties. Coffee prices dropped 25 percent in the seven months to July 2026 as additional supplies became available, as measured by the ICO monthly composite price index.

In 2023 the top coffee-producing countries were Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Ethiopia, all lying in the equatorial growing region known as the Coffee Belt.

The 1960s saw the emergence of the International Coffee Organization, a cartel of producing and consuming states that attempted to influence the world price of coffee from the 1960s until 1989 through export quotas. The organization collects and compiles independent official statistics on coffee production, trade and consumption, supports technical cooperation projects and promotes sustainability and coffee consumption. On 10 March 2026 the United Nations General Assembly officially designated 1 October as International Coffee Day through resolution A/RES/80/248 of the General Assembly.

Espresso is a preparation method in which highly pressurized hot water is forced over ground coffee; Illy defines it as hot water at 88-93 degrees Celsius under nine or more atmospheres passing through a seven-gram layer of tamped coffee. Desiderio Pavoni bought Luigi Bezzera's patents in 1903 and improved the design, adding the first pressure release valve and a steam wand; at the 1906 Milan Fair the two men introduced caffe espresso to the world.

The main methods of decaffeination rely on chemical solvents, carbon filtering, carbon dioxide extraction or triglycerides, and the caffeine is always removed in the green bean stage before roasting.

The Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is a continuing productive landscape of six sites that integrate eighteen urban settlements, inscribed in 2011. The landscape results from the adaptation of Antioquian settlers who arrived in the 19th century, creating an economy and culture deeply rooted in coffee production. Coffee farms sit on steep mountain ranges with slopes of over 25 percent, terrain that shapes plot layouts and the lifestyle of the cafeteros.

Mocha, a port on Yemen's Red Sea coast, has been associated with coffee since its founding in the 1300s, though its heyday came with the rise of European coffee culture in the 1700s.

• about 850 CE
  Kaldi legend
  The traditional account of coffee's discovery by the goatherd Kaldi.
• 13th century
  Shadhiliyya order
  The Sufi order is established in Tunisia and later in Egypt.
• 1436
  Ottoman occupation of Yemen
  Ottoman rule begins in Yemen.
• 15th century
  Coffee in Yemen and Mecca
  Coffee is grown in what is now Yemen; qahveh khanehs appear in Mecca; Sufi saints introduce the hot beverage. ^{10History of coffee · National Coffee Association of U.S.A. (About Coffee) ↗}
• 16th century
  Coffeehouses and regional popularity
  Coffeehouses open in Constantinople, and the drink gains popularity in lands that are now Iran, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. ^{1Coffee | Origin, Types, Uses, History, & Facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗ 10History of coffee · National Coffee Association of U.S.A. (About Coffee) ↗}
• 1580
  Prospero Alpini in Egypt
  The Italian physician travels to Egypt.
• 17th century
  Spread to Java and Europe
  The plant spreads to Java and the Indonesian archipelago, and coffee is introduced into one European country after another. ^{1Coffee | Origin, Types, Uses, History, & Facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}
• 1690s
  Dutch bring coffee to Java
  Dutch growers establish coffee on Java.
• 1737
  Linnaeus names the genus
  Coffee is placed in the genus Coffea.
• 1773
  Boston Tea Party
  The protest that shifted American drinking habits toward coffee.
• 1813
  Count Rumford's essay
  An essay on the preparation of coffee is published.
• 1823
  James Smithson's paper
  A scientific paper on coffee appears.
• 1850
  Brazil's dominance
  Brazil produces over half the world's coffee.
• 1884
  Angelo Moriondo patent
  A patent is granted for an espresso machine design.
• 1889–1913
  Reign of Emperor Menelik
  The Ethiopian emperor's reign, a period tied to the country's coffee culture.
• 1890–1901
  Brazilian production boom
  Output expands under the colono system.
• 1903
  Pavoni buys Bezzera patents
  Desiderio Pavoni acquires Luigi Bezzera's patents and improves the design, adding the first pressure release valve and a steam wand. ^{17The Long History of the Espresso Machine · Smithsonian Magazine ↗}
• 1906
  Milan Fair and valorization
  Pavoni and Bezzera introduce caffe espresso to the world at the Milan Fair; Brazil's valorization program begins. ^{17The Long History of the Espresso Machine · Smithsonian Magazine ↗}
• 1962
  First International Coffee Agreement
  The first international agreement governing coffee trade is concluded.
• 1963
  ICO established
  The International Coffee Organization is founded.
• 1989
  End of export quotas
  The ICO's export quota system is suspended.
• 2010
  Kafa zone recognized
  The Kafa zone is included in UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.
• 2011
  Colombia's coffee landscape inscribed
  The Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is inscribed.
• 10 March 2026
  International Coffee Day designated
  The United Nations designates 1 October as International Coffee Day.