HOW COFFEE SPREAD @museum.de

The history of coffee is closely associated with the African continent. If you look at the map, you’ll see a red pin identifying Kaffa Province in Ethiopia. Today, the most important coffee species is thought to have originated in the Ethiopian Highlands. It’s called Coffea Arabica.

In the 12th century, Arab traders carried the fruit to Yemen – that’s the green pin on the map. It was a very long trek to Yemen, and a lot of the fruits spoiled en route. To get around the problem, the traders eventually switched to exporting whole plants, which were subsequently cultivated on a local plateau. That was how the first coffee plantations were established in Yemen in the 15th century – with their own irrigation systems even at that early date.

The yellow pin on the map shows the origin of the second major coffee variety: Coffea Canephora, known as Robusta. It probably originally came from Uganda. Robusta plants grow more rapidly, thrive at lower altitudes and contain roughly twice as much caffeine as Arabica plants. However, Robusta beans have lower levels of aromatic substances.

Caffeine has a deterrent effect on pests, so the Robusta plant really is more resistant, or more “robust" than the Arabica plant, due precisely to its high caffeine content.

In Yemen, the port city of Mokha developed into the most important transhipment centre for coffee. That was because for a long time, Mokha was the only port in the Arabian region where European ships were permitted to dock.

Which explains why the name of the port came to be used for the coffee beans and for the beverage: Arabian mocha, though you may be more familiar with mocha as a name for a coffee and chocolate drink.

Even in the 15th century, people drank coffee on the go, in the streets and squares. In our exhibition, that’s represented by the little wooden cabinet with mother-of-pearl inlay. It’s a Middle-Eastern shoeshine stand. While a customer’s shoes were being polished, they would enjoy a cup of Arabian mocha from the brass tray.