* Oral tradition has coffee drinking originating in modern day Ethiopia
* Sufi monasteries in Yemen used coffee to aid prayers in the 15th century
* Spread to the Levant and Persia in the 16th century
* Arrived in Italy in the second half of the 16th century via Ottoman empire
* By mid-17th century had arrived in India and the East Indies
* Established in Western Europe by the late 17th century, especially in England and Germany
* First cultivated in Martinique in the New World in 1720 and spread to Sanit-Domingue and Mexico
* By 1852 Brazil had become the world's largest coffee producer
* Since 1950 the major growers have been Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and Vietnam