Coffee is today among the most widely traded agricultural products in the world, consumed in almost every country. Yet for most of human history no one drank it at all. The story of how a wild plant from the highlands of East Africa became a drink enjoyed by billions is a story about trade, religion and changing tastes.
According to legend, coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a young goatherd named Kaldi, who noticed that his goats became unusually lively after eating the red berries of a particular bush. Whether or not the story is true, there is solid evidence that Ethiopians were chewing coffee beans and brewing an early drink from them by at least the 9th century. From Ethiopia the plant crossed the Red Sea into Yemen, where merchants began to cultivate it on a large scale.
It was in the Arab world that coffee first took the form we would recognise today. By the 15th century, coffee houses had appeared in cities such as Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul. Known as "schools of the wise," they were places where men gathered to talk, play chess and discuss poetry. Religious authorities sometimes tried to close them, fearing that they distracted people from prayer, but the drink proved too popular to suppress.
Coffee reached Europe in the 17th century, first through the Italian port of Venice and then across the continent. New varieties were grown in colonial plantations in the Americas and Asia, which allowed prices to fall and consumption to spread to ordinary households. Today, coffee supports the livelihoods of an estimated 25 million farmers worldwide.