Coffee History. Coffee is native of Abyssinian (modern Ethiopia) from where its cultivation extended to Arabia and the rest of Middle East. It arrived in Europe in the XVI century with Venetian merchants. The Dutchmen introduced it in the South American colonies, Guyana, Colombia and the Antilles. Later on it reached the Caribbean and Brazil. America is for its climatology and orography, where the seed of the coffee found the most suitable place for its cultivation. Nowadays, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador are the major coffee producers in the world. Coffee was discovered as consumption product a long time ago. We have testimonies of its consumption from the VIII century when it was used as food, later as fermented drink, later as medicine and finally as infusion. Within Arab tradition there are diverse versions on the discovery of coffee and its stimulating effects. One of the legends tells that a desert shepherd was once looking for grass for his goats, one day, these goats ate some wild grains of red color and the surprise of the shepherd was to see how the animals jumped and got excited. This shepherd was, maybe, the first man to discovered the stimulating powers of the coffee.
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