Coffee is a tree or bush that originated in Africa. It was first domesticated in Arabia, and massively consumed in Europe and North America. Later grown in Asia and Latin America, coffee, more than any other crop, has tied together the rich and the poor. Originally a luxury, coffee has become a necessity for consumer and producer alike and, in terms of value, is one of the leading internationally traded commodities today and probably has been the most important internationally traded agricultural product in history.

Coffee, however, has also been one of the most contradictory and controversial of crops. It has linked the religious and the secular, the archaic and the bourgeois, the proletarian and the intellectual, the enslaved and the free, the laborer and the dilettante. It has been accused of destroying societies, of perpetuating vice, and of undermining developing economies.

Origins

The first human consumption of coffee has been obscured by time. But legends abound, such as that of a ninth century A.D. Ethiopian goatherd who tasted the bitter berries that left his flock animated, or about Arab traders, and even Christian monks, who first recognized the virtues of coffee. Coffea arabica first appeared natively in Ethiopia, yet the berries went largely ignored before Arabs in Yemen used them to brew a drink. Although some Africans drank coffee made from fresh berries, others roasted it with melted butter, and in a few regions it was chewed without any preparation. However, no extensive local traditions of arabica berry usage developed (see Ukers 1948; Uribe 1954), and consequently, coffee became an exotic crop, growing far from its original home.