Coffee as a Global Beverage before 1700

Coffee first appeared in world history in the middle of the fifteenth century, making its debut in the Middle East and diffusing to Europe during the seventeenth century. However, before colonial coffee appeared on the world market in the eighteenth century, coffee was produced in a very restricted area—Ethiopia and Yemen—and therefore, the amount of coffee on the world market was initially limited. In this article, I will discuss why coffee came to be drunk globally despite its limited production by examining the production, trade, and consumption of coffee prior to the eighteenth century.My conclusion is that the reason coffee became a “global beverage” before 1700 was because of the prior existence of a globaltrading network created by Indian Ocean traders. The network had long carried spices from east to west, and its existence facilitated the coffee trade and consequent culture prior to the eighteenth century, when the production of coffee expanded to other areas. The fact that coffee had already become a global beverage before 1700 led to the proliferation of a coffee drinking culture after colonial coffee appeared on the world market in the eighteenth century