Despite the fact that Coffea arabica grew wild in Ethiopia and Coffea robusta appeared naturally in the Congo, Yemen had a virtual world monopoly on production for about half of coffee’s 600 years of lifetime as a commodity. Stern measures were taken to prevent the smuggling out of coffee plants, and although this move was not entirely successful - there are reports of coffee growing on India’s Malabar coast and perhaps Ceylon in the sixteenth century - Yemen’s grip remained firm until the middle of the eighteenth century. In the early part of that century, Yemen may have been producing some 20 million pounds a year (Raymond 1973-4; Becker et al. 1979).
The beans were grown in small, irrigated mountain gardens in various small, broken areas of northern Yemen, then transported by camel either to port or across the deserts (Daum 1988).The entire crop was consumed in the Middle East and Southwest Asia until the middle of the seventeenth century, and even thereafter, the East remained the main market for another hundred years.
Europeans initially purchased Yemen’s coffee through Arabian traders. The Dutch and British East India Companies eventually established factors in Mocca, but they still exercised no control over production and had to make purchases with gold and silver because the Arabs much preferred Asian trade goods to European products. Another drawback was that such wealth attracted pirates, often based in Madagascar. Not satisfied with this precarious trade in a product whose value was growing vertiginously, the Europeans smuggled out coffee plants to begin production elsewhere. This decision ultimately spread the. Arabian bean to more than 100 countries on 4 continents. Yemen soon became an inconsequential coffee producer, and the thriving coffee port of Mocca, which probably had more than 30,000 inhabitants at its height, dwindled to 400 stragglers living amidst its ruins in 1901.
World History
