Coffee becomes a commodity
Coffee's journey from Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula marks a significant chapter in its early history and the transition from legend to documented historical events. Whether it was Sheik al-Shadhili (Ali Ben Omar) or another Sufi that discovered coffee or not, they certainly played a significant role in the drink's early history. The first records of regular coffee consumption are those of Muslim mystics as the caffeine helped them stay awake to pray all night long. Qahwa (a stimulating potion) was an integral part of the religious rituals - and for a good reason, as Sufism was practiced by laymen who worked during the day and needed the energy to practiced at night. Originally the drink was prepared with kafta (the leaves of a hallucinogenic plant, inducing euphoria), and the switch to coffee is attributed to Muhammed al-Dhabani who died in 1470.
Sufism was influential enough to drive the first transport of coffee across the Red Sea from Ethiopia to the Arabian territories. One of the major trading centers for coffee during this period was the port city of Mocha (modern-day Al-Makha) in Yemen. As a bustling hub for trade between East Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, it was an ideal gateway for distributing Ethiopian coffee brought by merchants along ancient trade routes. The Yemeni city of Mocha quickly became synonymous with coffee in the 15th and 16th centuries: it was here that the beans were roasted, brewed, and exported to other parts of the Arabian world. What made coffee popular was its exponential adoption as a social beverage consumed outside of religious ceremonies. The coffee houses in Mocha became famous gathering places where people from different backgrounds would come together to socialize, discuss politics, and conduct business over cups of coffee. And in a period of Ottoman Empire expansion, there’s no surprise coffee quickly spread to al major Islamic cities (Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Constantinople to name a few).
The distribution of coffee throughout Islam required a complex set of long-distance trading networks that all started in Ethiopia and converged onto Cairo, from where it was forwarded through the rest of the Ottoman Empire and ultimately into Europe. As you might guess, this was not a very efficient system! Around 1540 a combination of factors (high demand combined with unreliable supplies due to conflicts between African empire’s Christian north and Muslim south) forced the merchants to look for alternative sources, and coffee began to be cultivated in the highlands of Yemen. Seeds from Ethiopia were brought and planted by peasants alongside other crops. The high-altitude, dry climate was very different than Ethiopian forests, but with some effort this became the first commercial source of coffee.
…it remained the only source of commercial coffee for about 200 years, and by the 1700s these highland coffee crops supported a population of 1.5 million people. It was indeed a profitable business, and kept under a tight control by the Banyan merchants who ensured that absolutely no viable seed or plant left the ports! However, by now the famous “Arab wine” was spreading and growing in popularity through the rest of Europe and driving demand even further. It is said that at some point, ships in the port of Mocha would have to wait for more than a year to fill their cargos with beans. By 1720 the entire world coffee supply was flowing through the Red Sea and the 15,000 tons annual production was barely enough, driving prices higher and higher. As a result, every colonial European nation turned to alternative regions that could be a new source of coffee: the Dutch were the first said to smuggle coffee plants out of Yemen and bring them to Java, followed by the French and British to the Caribbean islands.