Coffee was first discovered in Northern Africa in an area we know today as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomenon, Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy-laden fruit quickly spread throughout the region. This is only a legend and there is a version in which Kaldi was Arabian and not Ethiopian. For centuries coffee beans were chewed raw in Ethiopia and in what today is the country of Yemen, located in the in the Southern Arabian peninsula.

The first cultivated coffee plant was found by Europeans in Yemen and facts support trade between Yemen and Ethiopia as early as 800 BC. Additionally, evidence does not support the plant would grow wild in Yemen. Although, it is possible that a large bird could have carried the berry that far, but it is not likely.

Arabs were the first to discover how to make coffee using boiling water and green beans. But green beans do not give up the coffeeols because the chemical change caused by roasting has not taken place.

One can start to trace the history of coffee from the words used to name it. Kaffa which is a town in Ethiopia where it is believed coffee originated. Harrar, another city in Ethiopia which types of coffee are named after.

It is believed that coffee roasting using traditional methods came about in the fourteenth century. It came about with the use of iron. However, bronze would have worked just as well. And, as stated earlier, the connection was too quick between roasting the beans and the development of iron roasting bans.

Coffee roasting was prevalent in Turkey in 1540's. It is thought that roasting began around Damascus because Damascus iron was easily able to handle the thermal characteristics which were required for roasting. Well, iron pan roasters anyway. The first iron roasters were more like frying pans with a lid. In many countries, the frying pan works great still today. Frying tends to sear the bean and doesn't give an even roast but it works well when there is nothing better. In fact, searing the bean retains much of the moisture and oils whereas roasting dries the bean out. Although consistency isn't one advantage with frying, searing the bean has definite advantages.

Any way, coffee didn't become super popular over a large area until the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul outlawed it in 1543 because it started to get more recognition than he wanted. Then it boomed. In 1554, the first coffee house was set up in Istanbul. The Ottoman empire, by its police power, had a big hand in spreading coffee throughout the European countries, Western Asia, and India.

The extreme spread of coffee by outlawing it is proof that you can't legislate something people like. In the case of coffee, the taste needs to be acquired. Coffee is naturally bitter. One must learn to drink coffee. You would think once coffee was outlawed and due to its bitter taste, coffee would have disappeared in the 16th century. This event is a true classical example of the best way to promote something is outlaw it.

Around the later 1600's, the standard coffee beverage took Europe by storm. Of course, the invasion of Europe the Turks between 1683 and 1699 had a lot to do with it. Once in Europe this new beverage fell under harsh criticism from the Catholic Church. Many felt the pope should ban coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise, the pope, already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian beverage.

Coffee houses spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for intellectual exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage, and forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity.

In the 1700's, coffee found its way to the Americas by means of a French infantry captain who nurtured one small plant on its long journey across the Atlantic. This one plant, transplanted to the Caribbean Island of Martinique, became the predecessor of over 19 million trees on the island within 50 years. It was from this humble beginning that the coffee plant found its way to the rest of the tropical regions of South and Central America.

Coffee was declared the national drink of the then colonized United States by the Continental Congress, in protest of the excessive tax on tea levied by the British crown.

Espresso, a recent innovation in the way to prepare coffee, obtained its origin in 1822, with the innovation of the first crude espresso machine in France. The Italians perfected this wonderful machine and were the first to manufacture it. Espresso has become such an integral part of Italian life and culture, that there are presently over 200,000 espresso bars in Italy.

After World War I, the coffee plant spread to just about everywhere coffee could grow. Due to the war, some countries got formed, other got eliminated, and others got broken up. World War II did the same thing. Many countries went through changes in coffee growing as disease, ignorance, and weather wiped out whole plantations' coffee plants. At times, some countries didn't have coffee growing for whole decades. As economics and intelligence change, coffee growing has been reintroduced in many of the countries which gave up growing. The coffee plant is not as protected as it use to be from the standpoint of hording. It is protected from the standpoint of damage however. So, coffee plants finally found their way into homes.

Today, coffee is a giant global industry employing more than 20 million people. This commodity ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars traded worldwide. With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world's most popular beverage. If you can imagine, in Brazil alone, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants.

Sales of premium specialty coffees in the United States have reached the multi billion dollar level, and are increasing significantly on an annual basis.