Where Coffee Was Born

Red Fruit in the Forest

The coffee tree once grew wild in the mountain forests of Ethiopia, in East Africa. Each red fruit holds two seeds. Roast those seeds, grind them and soak them in hot water, and you get coffee. But no record tells us who drank it first.

Why?The kind of coffee tree we drink most is thought to have first appeared in the forests of southwestern Ethiopia. Coffee trees that nobody planted still grow there today.

Learn moreA famous story says a goat herder named Kaldi discovered coffee after his goats ate the fruit and began to dance. But the story was first written down in a European book in the late 1600s, so it is treated as a legend. This documentary keeps legends and records apart.

When

1400 → 1450