22 August 2026 · 4 min read
coffee feels self-evident today, but behind it lie a thousand years of travel, bans, smuggling and cultural revolutions. let's walk that path briefly: it helps explain why coffee tastes and is served the way it is.
the legend of the goats
by the best-known legend, caffeine was discovered by an ethiopian goatherd named kaldi around the 9th century: he noticed that his goats, after eating red berries from a certain bush, pranced about and wouldn't sleep at night. whether it really happened is unknown, but arabica's homeland is indeed ethiopia, where it still grows almost wild. from there coffee began its journey across the world.
yemen and the first coffee houses
the first people to deliberately grow and roast coffee were in yemen (the mocha region — yes, that's where the word «mocha» comes from). from there the drink spread through the arab world. in the 15th–16th centuries coffee houses (qahveh khaneh) became centres of conversation, music and debate — they were even called «schools of the wise». coffee fell under bans several times as a «suspicious stimulating drink», but each time it came back.
europe and smuggled beans
in the 17th century coffee reached europe and quickly conquered london, vienna, paris. london's coffee houses were called «penny universities» — for a penny (the price of a cup) you could listen to learned conversation for hours. for a long time the arab world jealously guarded its monopoly, banning the export of live seeds — but beans were eventually smuggled out, and coffee plantations appeared in india, indonesia (java), and later latin america, which became the main producer.
how coffee took over the world
colonial plantations made coffee mass-market and cheap. in the 20th century instant coffee appeared, and companies learned to sell «coffee in general» — faceless, consistent, with no mention of origin. coffee became fuel for work and an everyday commodity off the shelf. flavour took a back seat to convenience and price.
the three waves
to understand modern coffee it helps to talk about «three waves»:
- the first wave — mass availability: instant and ground coffee in every home, the point being that it exists and is cheap
- the second wave — cafe chains and a culture of drinks: cappuccino, latte, «having coffee» as an experience and a meeting place
- the third wave — coffee as a craft and a product with an origin: a specific farm, variety, processing, fresh roasting, attention to flavour. specialty, and we, belong to the third wave.
and a little about today
the third wave gave coffee back what colonial mass production had taken: its name. it matters again WHO grew the bean, at what altitude, how they processed it — and a farmer can earn a fair price for quality rather than pennies for an anonymous sack. alongside this, attention to sustainability and direct trade is growing (a topic of its own for us).
in short
coffee's path runs from a wild bush in ethiopia through yemen, arab coffee houses, european «penny universities» and colonial plantations to today's third wave. each era added something of its own: ritual, availability, a culture of drinks — and, finally, respect for the bean itself and the people who grew it. when you drink a fresh specialty from a named farm, you're drinking the finale of this long story.