Through trade, dating back as far as 800 B.C. and perhaps during the Ethiopian occupation of Yemen in the early sixth century, coffee found its way across the Red Sea to be cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula.

Initially, coffee was used as a medicine and as a beverage associated with religious ceremonies. From the holy cities of Mecca and Medina at the center of the Islamic world, the use of coffee spread to Egypt, Persia, and Syria. During periods of Muslim expansion between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, coffee appeared in Turkey, the Balkan states, Spain, and North Africa. Turkish bridegrooms were required to promise coffee for their wives-to-be; failure to provide this necessity of life could have resulted in divorce.

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this delightful and compelling beverage--this drink of Islam--was enjoyed at coffee houses throughout the Middle East and in southern Europe. An institution had been born.

Despite efforts by early producers to control their wonderful commodity, coffee was smuggled to India. From there, the Dutch began cultivating Coffea arabica in Java on the Indonesian archipelago. And, in the eighteenth century, the French were transporting coffee trees to the Caribbean.

Today, coffee is grown on plantations and estates throughout the tropical regions of the world, and it is enjoyed as a beverage by coffee lovers worldwide. Few beverages offer such a universal appeal as coffee.