Nowadays coffee is a very important industry for many countries in the world and like all great facts in human lives, coffee has its own legend and it is necessary to tell it.

It is believed that the first coffee trees came from Ethiopia. The most famous legend about the origin of coffee says that one day an Ethiopian goatherd called Kaldi realized that his goats seemed to be very excited after eating some red berries from a tree. Thus, Kaldi, who felt very tired, tried some of the berries himself. He felt energetic and inspired to dance at once. Some monks, who saw what had been happening, prepared a beverage with the red berries in order to pray all night long. That method was effective and the story about the magic berries was known by many people.

This is not the only one legend or story about the origin of coffee. For this reason, there is some confusion in following coffee usages and beginnings. On the other hand, the first possible mention to coffee was by using the words bunn and bunchum, two Arabian terms. Coffee trees grew wild in Ethiopia, so it is thought that the Ethiopians might have carried some seeds to Yemen in the 6th century. But the Dutch were the ones who spread coffee in Europe. They prepared the tree to survive in Paris and London. The coffee tree went on traveling with them to the Dutch, Guayana and Brazil. The Dutch thought that coffee could be a great business and offered a tree to Louis XIV who built a Green House for the valuable plant.

There is another version on how coffee came to the New World. Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu thought that coffee trees could grow quickly in Latin America because of its climate. Thus, he stole some seeds from the King’s coffee tree. He shared his water with the only plant that survived the trip. That coffee tree reached the Caribbean islands and its seeds spread easily along the coasts.

In Europe, coffee became the most popular beverage in the 17th century when Pietro Della Valle, a Venetian trader, brought coffee beans to Italy. In addition, the first coffee shop in Paris was open in 1672 in Saint German Avenue. In Great Britain where tea was the king, coffee was love at first sight and coffee houses were established.

Coffee reached North America coast under the influence of British taste. In the 18th century, taverns sold tea and coffee that became more and more popular. After the famous "Boston Tea Party", colonists considered unpatriotic drinking tea, so coffee was imported from Central and South America.

Legends and stories help us to understand why coffee has become so popular. Drinking coffee offers us advantages and disadvantages but nobody can say that coffee is an insipid or unpopular drink. Coffee story helps us to know how this tree has traveled around the world and how people from different cultures surrendered to its properties and flavor.