The port of city of Mocha on the Red coast of Yemen, from which a distinctive style of coffee takes name – was the port from which most of Yemen’s coffee was exported between the 61th and 18th centuries.
It is in Mocha the port of Yemen that coffee became famous and began to shape the lives of men. Mocha was long famous as Arabia’s chief coffee exporting centre.
The first coffeehouses were opened in Mocha during the 15th century. They were known as Kahveh Kanes, and were places where the men gathered to enjoy each others company.
Coffeehouses later spread throughout the Islamic world. More and more people began to spend more and more time at the coffeehouses.
The coffee trade, which began in the 16th century, was originally based on Yemeni coffee. At the beginning of the 17th century, port of Mocha became an important trading center. European vessels competed for its use, and their ships, specializing in the trade of Yemeni coffee docked there in great number.
Even after other sources of coffee were found, mocha beans continued to be prized. Mocha’s importance to the coffee trade declined with opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Americans began adding chocolate to mocha coffee as a flavoring, but it wasn’t until recently when boutique coffee shops coined the term that mocha coffee took on the meaning of ‘chocolate-flavored’.
Mocha, Yemen and coffee
