I posed the following question to one of my good friends: "Where did coffee originate?" While we both knew that Bedouins and Arabs are famous for their beaten metal pots (finjans) and urns of rich, self-roasted coffee, we were also aware that all the good coffee flavors seem to originate in South America, particularly Brazil. So the bet was raised, which was the first country to discover coffee?

Well, both of us were wrong, apparently; it was Ethiopia. The cultivation of coffee can be traced back to the eleventh century, when the first coffee beans are recorded to have been harvested. From there it spread to the surrounding Arabic countries.

There are two, equally advocated, similar versions for as to how coffee was discovered. The Ethiopian version claims, that a goat herder named Kaldi was strolling in the pastures, allowing his goats to feed, when he noticed a whole bunch of extremely over-active (hyper, shall we say?) goats, jumping, prancing and frolicking in the fields. He noted that they were chomping on a particular type of berry (the coffee bean), and decided to give it a try too. Thus was coffee was discovered.

The other version of the story claims that it wasn't a goat herder who noticed the phenomenon, rather it was the Yemenite Sufi mystic, Shaikh ash-Shadhili, who had paid a visit to Ethiopia and noticed the goats' strange behavior while he was walking in the fields.

One thing is definitely agreed upon, however: Ethiopia was the first country to grow coffee beans. The first Arabic country coffee was then exported to was Yemen, where they also began to cultivate the crop. From there, the crop's export rapidly expanded to all the surrounding Arabic countries. The drink became so popular in the region largely due to the Muslim ban on wine and other alcoholic beverages. Coffee provided a great alternative drink that also had the power to lift one's mood and alleviate melancholy.

The first coffee house on record was opened in Istanbul in 1471. Its rapid popularization was followed by Muslim theological controversy and opposition. Mecca's Theological Courts argued that the drink promoted "looseness," due to its stimulating effects, and therefore should be banned. In 1511, the Theological Courts did just exactly that. The ban, however, was strictly opposed by the Muslim population and by the sultan himself, and so, in 1524, it was officially lifted.

The coffee bean eventually, via Arabic tradesmen, made its way across the Mediterranean Sea to Venice, Italy, where the popular drink made its première debut. From there the trade of coffee quickly spread to England, France, Austria, the Netherlands and throughout the rest of the European continent. The drink was so popular that it was officially "baptized" by Pope Clement VIII in the year 1600!

Coffee was eventually exported by France to the Americas, where the first plantations (on that side of the globe) were established in the West Indies. Eventually coffee made its way down to South America all the way into Brazil, where the first Brazilian coffee plantation was established in 1727.

So how is it that Brazil eventually became the world's chief exporter of coffee?

Well, until coffee reached Brazil, it had been a costly drink reserved for members of the elite, a luxury. Brazil succeeded in mass producing coffee at a fairly inexpensive cost, thus making it available to "the masses." Surprisingly, the #2 world exporter of coffee today is Vietnam, thanks to its great climate for cultivating the crop and the availability of cheap labor.