Coffee makes up the genus Coffea of the family Rubiaceae. Arabian coffee is classified as Coffea Arabica, Robusta coffee as Coffea Canephora, and Liberian coffee as Coffea Liberica.

Botanical evidence indicates that Coffea Arabica originated on the plateaus of central Ethiopia, several thousand feet above sea level.

According to the Kaldi Coffee Legend, coffee is said to have been first discovered when a goat-herd in Abysinia, while basking in the sun, observed his goats dancing on their hind legs after eating some red berries. He tasted the berries and his sleepy eyes opened. He took some to the village and everybody also liked it, as it kept them awake during their prayers.

Initially, coffee was brewed from green, unroasted beans to yield a tea-like beverage. By the late 13th century, Arabians roasted and ground coffee before brewing it. Ironically, coffee was usually brewed by Arabian men, and then drunk by Arabian women to alleviate menstrual discomforts.

Coffee cultivation was rare until the 15th and 16th centuries, when extensive planting of the trees occurred in the Yemen region of Arabia. From Yemen the use of coffee beans spread throughout the Arabian peninsula and later via the Othman Empire to Turkey. At that time, coffee was used for it's medicinal properties and as a ritual drink. The world's first coffee shop, Kiva Han, opened in Constantinople in 1475.

The modern coffee drink was invented at the end of 15th century, when roasting and crushing the coffee beans before extracting them with hot water grew in acceptance.

Turkish people claimed coffee to be an aphrodisiac and husbands kept their wifes well supplied. If the husband refused, it was a legitimate cause for a wife to divorce!

Legend also has it that the Arabs, protective of Coffea Arabica, refused to allow fertile seeds to leave their country. Transportation of the plant out of the Moslem nations was forbidden by the government. Around 1650 a Moslem pilgrim from India named Baba Budan snuck seeds out of Arabia. He planted his seeds in the hills in Mysore, India where they flourished.

Introduced into Europe in the early 1600's, coffeehouses quickly appeared. The Arabs used so much coffee that the Christian church denounced coffee as "the hellish black brew." But Pope Clement VIII found it so great tasting that he baptized it and made it a Christian beverage saying "coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it."

Exactly where and when coffee was first cultivated is not known, but some authorities believe that it was grown initially in Arabia near the Red Sea around the year 675. Other authorities say that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia around the year 900. Still others say that around the year 575, Arab traders took it to the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, now known as Yemen, where the cultivation of coffee began.