The Coffee Culture - From Sacred Bean to Global Obsession

How Coffee Entered Human History

The story of coffee begins in the highlands of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where legend and history blend. The most famous origin myth comes from Ethiopia: a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his goats dancing with unusual energy after eating bright red cherries from a shrub; monks at a nearby monastery eventually roasted and brewed the seeds and discovered the energising drink now known as coffee. Behind the legend lies a more sober historical record: wild coffee plants are native to Ethiopia, but the earliest clear evidence of coffee cultivation and brewed coffee as a beverage comes from Yemen in the 12th–15th centuries.

By the 15th century, Sufi mystics in Yemen were drinking coffee, known as qahwa, to stay alert during long nights of prayer. Yemeni farmers began cultivating Coffea arabica in the highlands, and ports like Mocha turned into global coffee hubs, exporting beans across the Red Sea and beyond. Whether one credits Ethiopia’s forests or Yemen’s terraces as the “true” birthplace, by the late Middle Ages coffee had become an integral part of religious, social, and commercial life in the Islamic world.

By the 15th century, coffee was already being cultivated in Yemen’s highlands and shipped from the port of Mocha, which is why “mocha” still appears on café menus today.

The Ottoman Empire and the First Coffeehouses

From Yemen, coffee spread via trade routes to Mecca, Cairo, Damascus, and, by the early 16th century, Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Here, something revolutionary happened: the world’s first dedicated coffeehouses, or kahvehane, opened in Istanbul around 1555, founded by merchants from Damascus. These spaces were far more than places to drink a hot beverage.

Ottoman coffeehouses quickly became social and intellectual hubs where men from all classes gathered to talk politics, listen to music, hear poetry, play games, and exchange news. Their influence grew so large that authorities both used them as sites for surveillance and periodically tried to shut them down, fearing sedition—but bans never lasted long because demand was too strong. Within a few generations, coffee had gone from a Sufi aid to devotion to the social fuel of an empire.

Some Ottoman coffeehouses were so influential that sultans periodically tried to shut them down, fearing political plots, but bans never lasted long because the public loved them too much.

From Arabia to Europe: How Coffee Became “Famous”

Coffee’s leap from regional ritual to global craze happened through two main routes: overland through the Ottoman Empire into Europe and by sea from the Yemeni port of Mocha via European trading companies. By the 17th century, coffee was arriving in cities like Venice, London, Amsterdam, and Paris; European traders also experimented with cultivating coffee in colonies from India to Java.

The first European coffeehouses appeared in the mid‑1600s. In Protestant countries in particular, coffee’s stimulating, non-alcoholic character made it an attractive alternative to taverns. Coffeehouses in London became known as “penny universities” where, for the price of a cup, patrons gained access to newspapers, ideas, and debates. In short order, drinking coffee was no longer exotic; it was fashionable. The drink’s reputation as a sober, industrious stimulant helped power its rise during Europe’s commercial and intellectual expansion.

By the early 1700s, London already had hundreds of coffeehouses, so many that people joked you could pick your favourite one based on your politics, profession, or gossip preferences.

Vienna and the Birth of the “Coffeehouse Culture” Idea

Vienna arguably turned the coffeehouse into a cultural institution in its own right. By around 1900, there were already some 600 coffeehouses in the city. These Kaffeehäuser developed a distinctive style—marble-topped tables, Thonet bentwood chairs, velvet upholstery, newspaper tables, and large mirrors that allowed quiet people-watching.

The Viennese coffeehouse has been described as a “democratic club,” where anyone could sit for hours with a single cup, reading, writing, playing cards, or receiving mail. In 2011, “Viennese Coffee House Culture” was added to Austria’s UNESCO inventory of intangible cultural heritage, lauded as a place “where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill.” This model—coffee as pretext for extended social, intellectual, and artistic life—influenced café cultures from Central Europe to Latin America.

Some famous writers, including Stefan Zweig and Peter Altenberg, were so attached to their favourite Viennese cafés that they listed them as their official postal address, receiving mail there like it was home.

Italy’s Espresso Revolution

If Vienna perfected the lingering coffeehouse, Italy perfected the quick shot. Espresso culture emerged after Angelo Moriondo patented an early espresso machine in 1884, enabling coffee to be brewed rapidly under pressure. Over time, the Italian bar—a stand-up counter where locals down a tiny, intense caffè in seconds—became the beating heart of daily life.

Italian coffee culture is governed by unwritten rules. Cappuccino is strictly a morning drink; ordering one after 11 a.m. can draw raised eyebrows. Espresso (caffè) is the default order, consumed al banco (at the bar) in a minute or less, often accompanied by a brief chat with the barista. Traditions like caffè sospeso, paying for an extra “suspended coffee” for someone in need capture how deeply generosity and sociability are woven into Italy’s relationship with coffee.

Italy drinks tens of billions of cups of coffee per year, and the vast majority is consumed as espresso or espresso‑based drinks, not the large mugs common in the United States.

Coffee as Ceremony: Ethiopia and Turkey

In Ethiopia, coffee is not just an energiser but a daily ritualised ceremony called bunna or jebena buna. A host traditionally a woman roasts green beans over hot coals, grinds them by hand, and brews them in a clay pot called a jebena placed directly on the fire. The ceremony typically lasts two to three hours and may be performed multiple times a day; three successive rounds of coffee, often served with popcorn, symbolise deepening friendship and blessing. Conversation ranges from family matters to politics, making coffee a linchpin of social life.

In Turkey, coffee is prepared very differently yet holds similarly deep cultural significance. Finely ground Arabica is slowly boiled in a small pot called a cezve, often with sugar, and served unfiltered so the grounds settle in the cup. Turkish coffee is meant to be sipped slowly while talking; it has been recognised by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity because of its ceremonial role in social gatherings, courtship rituals, and hospitality. Ottoman-era Turkish coffeehouses, or kıraathane, were the ancestors of much of Europe’s café culture.

A classic Turkish saying goes, “A cup of coffee commits one to forty years of friendship”, showing how seriously the culture links coffee to lasting relationships.

Brazil and the Americas: Coffee as Everyday Welcome

Brazil, now the world’s largest coffee producer, built a distinct coffee culture around the cafezinho, literally “little coffee.” This small, very strong and very sweet coffee is offered in homes, offices, shops, and even banks as a default gesture of hospitality and connection. Refusing a cafezinho can be seen as impolite; accepting one signals openness to conversation, whether sealing a deal or simply passing time with neighbours.

Across the Americas, coffee took on diverse forms: from U.S. diner drip and Cuban café cubano to Colombian tinto. In the late 20th century, chain cafés like Starbucks and Caribou exported an American-flavoured coffeehouse model worldwide big mugs, flavoured lattes, and couches, marking what is often called the “second wave” of coffee culture. Coffee was no longer just something brewed at home or in a neighbourhood café; it became an aspirational, branded lifestyle.

Brazil has been the top coffee producer for more than a century, and at times has supplied around one third of the world’s coffee output.

Asia’s Creative Twists: Vietnam’s Sweet Inventions

In Asia, coffee collided with local tastes and scarcity to produce entirely new styles. Vietnam, one of the world’s largest robusta producers, is famous for cà phê sữa đá—strong, dark coffee slowly filtered over sweetened condensed milk and poured over ice. During the late 1940s, when milk was scarce in Hanoi, a bartender named Nguyen Giang at the Metropole Hotel began using whipped egg yolks and condensed milk as a creamy substitute, inventing cà phê trứng, or egg coffee.

Egg coffee is made by beating egg yolks with sugar and condensed milk into a fluffy cream and pouring it over concentrated coffee, sometimes kept warm in a bowl of hot water. The result is a dessert-like drink that has become an icon of Hanoi’s café scene, showing how global coffee can still be hyper-local in expression

Other Asian cities have their own signatures, from Hong Kong’s “yuenyeung” mix of coffee and milk tea to Seoul’s elaborate dessert cafés where coffee comes alongside cakes and bingsoo. In each case, global coffee meets local ingredients and tastes, creating something new and instantly recognisable to locals.

The popularity of sweet, iced, and flavoured coffees in Asian megacities is one reason why cold coffee is now one of the fastest‑growing categories worldwide.

By the early 20th century, coffee had already become truly global. In some places it was a sacred ritual, in others a political forum, a quick morning jolt, or a sugary afternoon escape. The same basic ingredient was being roasted, brewed, and shared in radically different ways, each reflecting the values and rhythms of the culture that adopted it.