What Country Invented Coffee? (Solved & Explained!)

Coffee plants are native to Ethiopia and areas of Somalia. The first account of coffee being roasted and brewed into a beverage suggests that coffee as a drink was invented in Yemen around the 15th century.

Students and religious figures in Yemen used coffee to promote wakefulness during prayer or study. Commercial instant coffee was first patented and sold in New Zealand in 1890.

Which country discovered coffee first?

It is widely accepted that the earliest evidence of coffee agriculture began in Ethiopia. Over time it seems that coffee plants were transported across the Red Sea to Yemen and other countries in the Arabian Peninsula. Here, records show that coffee beans were roasted and brewed to create the coffee we recognize today.

Who invented coffee?

Coffee has been around for so long that it is difficult to determine who actually invented it. One legend suggests that coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goatherd called Kaldi in the 9th century. He saw how the beans of the coffee plant caused his goats to become more alert.

Although coffee likely originated in Ethiopia, it was first documented in accounts by Ahmed al-Ghaffar in 15th century Yemen.

What country invented instant coffee?

Instant, or soluble, coffee is a much more recent invention. The earliest recording of dehydrated coffee is from Britain in 1771. Later, a man in New Zealand patented his method to create soluble coffee in 1890.

The first major instant coffee brand, Red-E Coffee, was launched in the USA in 1909 by George Louis Washington. In 1938 the company Nescafé was launched in Switzerland and is still one of the main instant coffee manufacturers in the world.

Where does coffee come from?

Coffee is made by roasting the seeds of a coffee plant from the Coffea family, usually Coffea arabica or Coffea canephora varieties. The seeds, or coffee beans, are contained within a bright red berry which is removed at harvest.

The beans are then dried out and roasted. Depending on the type of coffee you buy, you may have either whole or ground coffee beans. Brewing the ground beans creates coffee, the hot, energizing drink loved around the world.

What country first started trading coffee?

Although coffee is native to Ethiopia and other nations in the Horn of Africa, large-scale trade of coffee began in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Farmers here would boil the harvested coffee beans to make them infertile before selling them.

If someone planted these beans, they would not grow, and until the 1600s coffee plantations were exclusively contained in Arabia and Africa.

Where do coffee plants grow?

Coffee plants are native to Ethiopia and Somalia, but as time has gone on coffee plants have spread around the world. Coffee plants need very specific climates to grow in. The most successful plants are on farms with defined wet and dry seasons, sunshine, higher altitudes, and mild winters.

The countries which meet these specifications are collectively called ‘the coffee belt’ and typically extend across the center of the globe.

In 2022, almost all of the world’s coffee is grown within the coffee belt specifically in Central and East Africa, Southeast Asia, Madagascar, India, and South America.

What was coffee originally used for?

The reasons people use coffee haven’t changed much since it first gained popularity. As reported by Ahmed al-Ghaffar, religious leaders and scholars would drink coffee to improve their concentration. It was also used by these members of society to stay awake during long prayer or study sessions, much like the students of today.

In Ethiopia there is some evidence that coffee was used to greet guests and family in the home, where it was brewed in a large bowl and richly spiced.

Has coffee changed since it was first discovered?

Since coffee first took root in Ethiopia, spread across the Arab Peninsula and onto the rest of the world it has remained remarkably unchanged. The coffee plants commercially farmed today are almost identical to the Coffea plants of Ethiopia and produce the same beans. What has changed over the years is how we prepare and drink coffee.

Milk was only added to coffee by the Dutch around 1660, the espresso was invented in Italy in the 1880s, and cappuccino didn’t enter the coffee scene until the early 1900s. In 2022 we have hundreds of types of coffee-based drinks all of which are a far cry from the original coffee of the 15th century.

When did coffee come to Europe?

Coffee was mostly confined to the Arab world and West Africa for the first few centuries since its discovery. Legends credit Baba Budan, an Indian pilgrim, with smuggling fertile coffee beans out of Mecca in the early 1600s.

From here, Dutch traders established coffee plantations in Sri Lanka in 1616 and eventually spread their enterprise to Java by 1696. Other European countries followed suit and the coffee business was well established in Europe by the mid-1700s.

When did coffee come to the USA?

Despite the popularity of coffee in modern day America, it was slow to arrive in the New World. Although coffee was available from the early 1700s it didn’t gain traction until the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773. After this historical moment, switching from tea to coffee was seen as an act of patriotism and the citizens of the US never looked back.

Growth was so rapid that by 1864 roasted coffee beans were readily available to buy on the high street and coffee was seen as both a luxury, and a way of life.

What country produces the most coffee?

Coffee is big business – but coffee can only be grown in very specific climates. When coffee was introduced to Brazil in 1727 it initiated an explosion of Brazil’s global trade status.

By the 1830s Brazil was the largest exporter of coffee beans in the world, a position it has maintained to this day.

Brazil is responsible for an incredible 35% of the world’s supply of coffee. When considering that the global coffee industry is today worth $465.9 billion, that sure is a lot of coffee!