The discovery of coffee There are numerous legends surrounding the discovery of coffee which are based only on word of mouth. This aromatic beverage is therefore as dark as its past. Kaldi the hersman A goat herder called Kaldi in Kaffa (Abyssinia) watched in amazement how active his herd had become after eating some wild red cherries from a coffee plant. He also tried the red berries and felt wide awake and stimulated. The good news passed from village to village and its inhabitants started to make some sort of tea from the leaves and flowers of the plants. The called the new beverage "gahwa". The worldwide spread of coffee We know for certain that coffee originated in the highlands of Ethiopia and was cultivated from 1400 AD. From the middle of the 15th century, Arabs drank coffee and cultivated their coffee plantations in Yemen. The first coffee houses arose around this time. The Turks had conquered the Arabian penisula by 1517 and entered the coffee business. They developed it over the next 100 years and were extremely successful. The beans were sent by sea to the harbor of Mocha, which is where the name "mocha" comes from. Alexandria became the brisk trade center for coffee beans and a very important place for Venetian and French traders. Demand was great and the Turks controlled all the coffee trade. No viable plant was allowed to leave the country. However, a Muslim pilgrim smuggled some seedlings out and laid the cornerstone of the first plantation in Southern India. Coffee arrived through Venice to Europe and the first coffee house in Europe opened in 1554 in former Constantinople. European traders, who had enjoyed coffee abroad, took it home. Coffee flooded the European market in the second half of the 17th century with coffee houses springing up in Venice (1645), Oxford (1650) and Bremen (1673). Due to increased demand, further coffee plantations were established in Indonesia in the 17th century and in South America in the 18th century. Coffee in the 20th century Brazil had become the most important coffee producer of the world at the beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays, most of the coffee beans come from Central and South America. The worldwide production of coffee beans now amounts to more than 100 million bags a year. Over the last 250 years, coffee consumption (green coffee) has grown as follows: 1750: 600 000 bags, 1850: 4 million bags, 1950: 36 million bags, 1995: 94 million bags, 2000: 103 million bags. Coffee is the second most important commodity after oil.