It was probably the Arabs of southern Yemen who
were the first commercial growers and traders in coffee back in the
first millennium.
Coffee was first cultivated commercially in the Yemen area
between 1250 and 1600 when extensive planting of the coffea arabica
plant occurred. By the end of the 13th century, coffee drinking had
become almost part of the Muslim religion and wherever the religion
of Islam went, coffee was eventually to follow – to India, North
Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Initially, however, the Arabs jealously guarded their precious bean
crop and made every effort to prevent other countries acquiring
their coffee plants. They would not allow coffee beans to be taken
out of the country unless they had first been dried in sunlight or
boiled in water to ensure the seeds could not germinate elsewhere.
In fact, it is said that no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or
Arabia until the 1600s. As a result of this, for many centuries
Yemen was the world's primary source of coffee.
An Indian pilgrim known as Bapa Budan is credited with smuggling
some green beans back to his homeland in 1600AD and the plants
flourished there. Despite their best efforts, the Arabs could not
stop the smuggling of fertile coffee beans, and plants were soon
being grown throughout Northern Africa. At the start of the 17th
century, coffee beans were being traded with Italy via Venice –
then a major trading port with North Africa.
coffee spreads to europe
Coffee growing was also starting to be carried out by some of
the European countries – initially in their colonies in Africa and
later in their West Indian and East Indian territories. It was from
the Caribbean Islands and (French) Guyana, that coffee plantations
were soon to spread to Brazil and Central America from early in the
18th century.
The Dutch managed to get some plants out from the Yemeni port of
Mocha in the 17th century and started growing the plants first in
Ceylon (Sri-Lanka) and then in their Indonesian colonies. It was
not until the late 19th century that the French introduced coffee
growing to French Indo-China (Vietnam).
Coffee is believed to have arrived in North America in 1607 when
Captain John Smith helped to found the colony of Virginia at
Jamestown.
It was the Dutch, however, who, with a coffee plant smuggled out of
the Arab port of Mocha, became the first to transport and cultivate
coffee commercially in 1690. They founded the East India coffee
trade by taking the coffee tree to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and their
East Indian colony, Java, and as a result, Amsterdam became a
trading centre for coffee. Coffee was becoming a precious product
fit for Royal gifts and, in 1714, the mayor of Amsterdam sent a
young coffee tree to King Louis XIV of France as a present. These
seedlings were entrusted by the King to the botanists of the King's
Royal Botanical Garden (now the "Jardin des Plantes").
gabriel mathiel de clieu
A
young naval officer, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, was in Paris on
leave from Martinique - a French colony in the Caribbean – and,
imagining that Martinique could become a Dutch Java, he requested
clippings from his King's tree. Permission was, however, denied.
Determined, de Clieu led a moonlight raid of the King's Garden and
managed to steal a seedling from the greenhouses. De Clieu then set
sail for Martinique only to discover the worst was still to
come.
On the return journey to Martinique, de Clieu was to encounter a
number of setbacks. A "basely jealous" passenger attempted to steal
his coffee seedling and, when unable to get the plant away from
him, tore off a branch. The ship was then attacked and almost
captured by pirates. Getting over that, it suffered a violent storm
and when the skies became clear they became becalmed. Water grew
scarce, but the young coffee tree was kept alive because de Clieu
used part of his own tiny water ration to water it.
On arriving in the Caribbean, de Clieu planted the tree on his own
estate in Martinique where, under armed guard, it thrived and was
to become the forerunner of a total of about 18 million trees by
the year 1777. It is, in fact, the descendents of this plant, which
ended up producing the entire Western coffee industry.
The French and the Dutch were, like the Arabs before them, anxious
to protect their monopoly of coffee cultivation. Brazil's emperor,
however, were after a cut of the coffee market and, in 1727, he
send Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta to French Guiana to mediate
a border dispute between the French and Dutch. Not only did the
Colonel settle the dispute but he also managed to initiate an
affair between him and the governor's wife. The plan paid off, as
for a farewell gift at a state dinner, she presented him with a sly
token of affection - a bouquet in which she hid cuttings of a
coffee plant. It is said that from these shoots the world's
greatest coffee empire and the great coffee plantations of Latin
America emerged.
By 1800 Brazil's monster harvests would turn coffee from a drink
for the elite into an everyday drink for the people the world
over.