Since that miracle back in 575AD, coffee has been prized for it's stimulating effects, well before it became an everyday beverage. As a mild stimulant, the Africans used to take the green bean and grind it, mix it with fat and eat them.

By the 6th Century, coffee trees were being cultivated in what is today known as Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula. There they used the raw husks of the coffee berries and the seed to make a sort of tea. For several centuries on, the signifigance of coffee had only been as a medicine, until the Arabs had discovered how to boil water and coffee then became a hot drink.

Kenyan Coffee Estate.

Now, that coffee was well on it's way to fame and fortune, the drinking of coffee quickly spread throughout the Islamic Peoples of Arabia, Across the Red Sea to Ethiopia (1454 AD), eventually reaching Egypt, Turkey (1517 AD), Constantinople, Damascus, Syria by 1530 AD. It's advent onto the Western culture did not happen until the Seventeenth century. By now coffee had become a very valuable trading commodity indeed and by the 1630's it had reached England. Coffee was used in trade for such other commodities as spices and other saleable items.

Colombian Coffee Plantation

There are however stories about the protection and monopoly of coffee and it's qualities throughtout history. The Arabs maintained a tight security for 4 centuries so that no foreigner or travelling civilian for that matter, would ever visit the plantations or even export the coffee seed unless of course it was roasted first.

This protection did however fail as time grew on and the peoples of the whole world had developed a taste for coffees brilliant and distinct flavor. It would seem that such a special and popular drink could not be protected as much as the Arabs would have liked, as it was the Dutch, after many failed attempts, finall succeded in smuggling plants and subsequently cultivating coffee in Java in the early 1700's.

By the 1760's, coffee was being successfully grown in Guatemala and by 1780 in Costa Rica.

With this vast history of coffee, it is amazing to note, that coffee had taken well over 1300 centuries to spread across the globe, before the plant was actually introduced into Kenya. Up until now it had been cultivated in parts of the world such as, Arabia, Abbysinia (wild and first discovery - although by legend), Ethiopia, Martinique (French West Indies), Surinam (Java), Brazil, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Kenya did not see the cultivation of coffee until 1878 AD when the British settlers introduced it upon recognizing the excellent growing conditions which coffee cultivation required. Today, Kenya remains a major player in the growing and supply of some of the worlds finest coffees.