A Brief History of Coffee
The history of the coffee plant is nothing if not storied — ancient legends of coffee-loving goats, monks, traders, and kings. A plant and its fruit of mythical renown making their way over centuries from Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula across cultures and continents.
Ethiopia: Discovery
Coffee first consumed in Ethiopia by chewing beans and leaves, brewing as tea, or fermenting pulp into wine. It became integral to Ethiopian culture — where today an elaborate daily coffee ceremony is still central to social life.
Yemen: First Cultivation & Qahwa
Arabian traders brought coffee across the Red Sea to Yemen, where it was first roasted and boiled into a drink called qahwa — "that which prevents sleep." Yemen controlled the entire global coffee trade by requiring all exported beans to be sterilized first. The port city of Mocha became the world's major arabica market hub.
Constantinople: First Coffeehouses
The Ottoman Governor of Yemen introduced coffee to Istanbul. The Topkapi Palace created the position of kahvecibaşı — Chief Coffee Maker. The world's first recorded coffeehouses (kaveh kanes) opened, where customers drank coffee, socialized, listened to music, and played chess — remarkably like a modern Starbucks "third place."
Europe: Coffee Takes Hold
Coffee reached Europe via Venetian merchants. London's coffeehouses became "penny universities" — a penny bought coffee, newspapers, and edifying conversation. Paris fell for café au lait after the Turkish Ambassador introduced coffee to Louis XIV's court. Vienna's Franz Georg Kolschitzky strained out grounds and added cream and honey, creating Viennese-style coffee.
The Americas: Coffee Goes Global
A French naval officer stole a shoot from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris and smuggled it to Martinique. A Portuguese officer was given fertile seeds in a bouquet by the governor's wife in French Guiana — those seeds would begin coffee in Brazil, which now produces more coffee than any other country. The Boston Tea Party (1773) made coffee America's patriotic drink of choice.
Peet's Coffee: Specialty Begins in the U.S.
Alfred Peet opened Peet's Coffee and Tea in Berkeley, California, roasting dark in the European style. Three of his disciples — Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker — would go on to open the first Starbucks in Seattle in 1971, selling freshly roasted whole bean coffee.
Howard Schultz & the Starbucks We Know
Howard Schultz joined Starbucks in 1982, traveled to Milan, and was enamored with Italian espresso bar culture. In 1984 he opened the first full espresso bar; within two months it was serving 800 customers a day. After buying Starbucks in 1987, Schultz grew it to 165 stores by 1992, went public, opened in Tokyo in 1996, and has grown to more than 29,000 stores in 76 countries.
The Coffee Tree
Tap a varietal to learn more. More than 80% of commercial arabica comes from Typica or Bourbon-related varieties.
Rising from the Soil (6 weeks)
A delicate stem sprouts from the soil, carrying the parchment-covered seed with it — the "soldier" or "matchstick" stage. Farmers select only the healthiest seedlings to move to the protected nursery environment.
The Butterfly Stage (2 months)
The parchment shell falls away revealing the first true leaves, resembling a butterfly's rounded wings. Over the next weeks, the plant produces shiny, elongated, pointed leaves.
Health Check (4 months)
First branches develop. Size, structure, leaf color, branch spacing, and root system are observed. Any plant that doesn't qualify is discarded — a healthier plant is more productive and has a longer life.
Ready for the Field (1 year)
With dark green color, healthy foliage, and a prominent root system, the young tree leaves the nursery and is transplanted to its permanent home in a coffee field. Now the farmer waits.
Mature Coffee Tree (3–5 years)
The tree is fully mature, flowers every year, and begins producing coffee cherries. A healthy coffee tree can produce cherries for 25–30 years. Trees are pruned to 5–6 feet (from a potential 30 feet) to increase productivity and allow airflow to prevent fungi.
The coffee tree is a living being with all the vital functions of every living being: She breathes, eats, grows and reproduces. And here is her offspring, right here, the coffee cherries. The tree will put in all her effort, she will sacrifice all of her leaves and branches to offer her offspring the best conditions for growth. That is why we say the coffee tree is an excellent mother.
— Orlando Mora, Agronomist, Costa Rica Farmer Support CenterThe Coffee Cherry
Coffee is omnipresent in our lives — but we might often forget it comes from a fruit. Throughout over 70 countries, more than 25 million people depend on coffee farms for their economic livelihood. The story of how the cherry is harvested, processed, and transformed into a green bean is coffee's crucial first chapter.
As the dry season turns to wet, coffee trees bud. Triggered by a long rain, the buds bloom into delicate, white, jasmine-scented flowers — when the fields are in full bloom, it almost looks like snow has fallen. Flowers are replaced by clusters of green cherries. Over the next few months, the cherries slowly change color from green to yellow to ruby red. It takes about nine months for a tree to progress from flowering to producing ripe cherries.
The premium coffee Starbucks sources thrives at high elevations, where cherries experience warm days and cooler nights — slowing growth and creating denser, complex beans. This is called selective harvesting: harvesters may revisit the same tree several times to pick only the ripest cherries.
How the cherry is processed fundamentally shapes what ends up in your cup. Tap each method to explore it.
Washed (Wet) Processing
The most widely used method worldwide. After de-pulping, the mucilage is removed via fermentation (18–36 hours in a cement tank) or a demucilaging machine using less than 5% of traditional water. Beans are then dried in their parchment layer, rested in bags for up to two months, and finally hulled.
The mucilage has minimal contact with the bean, so its influence on flavor is limited. The result is a clean, bright cup with nuanced flavors, pleasing acidity, and a crisp finish.
After processing, all green coffee is sorted at a dry mill — by hand, optical sorters (using color), and density separators (denser = higher quality). Coffee is then weighed and bagged in burlap sacks of around 60 kilograms, often with colorful national designs expressing pride.
Bags are loaded into 20-foot shipping containers and taken to cargo ships. Depending on the destination, the coffee's trip takes two to eight weeks. A cargo ship from Africa to the East Coast of the U.S. travels more than a month. In some regions, before reaching the port, coffee makes even more interesting journeys — by oxcart in Costa Rica, motor scooter in Indonesia, or by donkey in Latin America.
Coffee-Growing Countries
Coffee grows best in the Coffee Belt — the tropical and sub-tropical zones that wrap around the globe between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. This vast, complex area encompasses three main regions: Latin America, Africa, and Asia/Pacific. While each region has characteristic flavors, terroir (the combination of soil, altitude, and microclimate) makes every origin unique — even farm to farm.
Tap a country to learn about its coffee.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia — The Birthplace of Coffee
Coffee drinking has been part of Ethiopian culture for centuries. Only around half of the coffee produced is exported — the rest is consumed domestically. An elaborate, daily coffee ceremony of roasting, grinding, and brewing is still central to social life. In Southwestern Ethiopia, arabica shrubs grow wild in veritable coffee forests — lore has it this is where Kaldi's goats discovered the berries.
Flavors: Incredibly diverse — from fruity and berry-forward naturally processed coffees to bright, floral, and citrusy washed coffees. Heirloom varietals give Ethiopian coffees flavors found nowhere else in the world.
Ethical Sourcing
Ethical sourcing is the practice of making sure coffee is purchased in a responsible, sustainable way — helping ensure safe, fair working conditions for farmers and taking into account any environmental or social impacts. It respects the work done by the millions of people who bring the coffee industry to life.
When a cup of coffee is purchased, there is a kind of ripple effect around the world that touches many lives. We feel responsible to the hardworking individuals who grow our coffee and invested in the land and crops they devote themselves to. Starbucks has set out to use its scale to help improve the livelihoods of tens of millions of people in its coffee supply chain.
Starbucks hires agronomists — experts in coffee agriculture and processing who work collaboratively with farmers and suppliers around the globe. They help farmers increase the quality and quantity of coffee grown while protecting the environment. Improvement in both can help farmers earn more money, allowing them to invest in their farms, families, and communities.
Every cup they serve, that every cup they sell, has the effort not only of the coffee producer, not only the family's effort, but also has the effort of co-workers like me who are, every day, giving the best of themselves. I invite you to do it with the passion with which we're doing it. That will always lead us to be one of the best coffee companies in the world.
— Eddie Garcia, Agronomist, Guatemala Farmer Support CenterOpen-source means freely sharing information for the good of all. Starbucks shares everything — from farming best practices to new varieties of climate-resilient arabica coffee — with the rest of the industry. Even those farmers who don't do business with Starbucks benefit from the company's findings.
For a large coffee company that purchases from a variety of small suppliers, there is no value in trying to gain a competitive edge by hoarding trade secrets. Improving the abilities of all coffee growers to survive climate change benefits the entire industry.
Starbucks, with the 25-year-old relationship, with the direct relationship, with the volume of coffee that we may sell — we can guarantee many of our associates a price that's sustainable for them to cover their expenses and receive some profit. Starbucks is a buyer that buys volume from us, pays a good price for the coffee and makes us feel very good in a win-win relationship for both parts.
— Carlos Vargas, Manager, CoopeTarrazú, Costa RicaC.A.F.E. Practices
In 1998, Starbucks partnered with Conservation International to create C.A.F.E. (Coffee and Farmer Equity) Practices — one of the coffee industry's first sets of sustainability standards verified by third-party experts. While there are other socially responsible designations, C.A.F.E. Practices is a comprehensive approach that not only sets minimum expectations but promotes continuous improvement through best practices in sustainable coffee production.
The first two are prerequisites — Starbucks will not purchase coffee unless it meets both of these standards. Tap each component to explore it.
C.A.F.E. Practices has given us a model and an example of how we can produce in concordance with the environment — how we can take that responsibility as producers to keep growing our gold beans but taking care of the environment, with both social and economic responsibility, which is basically a group of elements that has to go together.
— Ricardo Zuñiga, Agronomic Engineer, CoopeTarrazú, Costa RicaTest Your Knowledge
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