When Chinese ships sailed to Arabia in the fifteenth century, they returned home without coffee beans, which were traded almost exclusively by Arabs out of Yemen. Not until the second half of the nineteenth century did French missionaries introduce winemaking and plant coffee seeds in the sunny mountains of Yunnan province.

The seeds French priests took north from Indochina were the progeny of the arabica seeds transported to India from Yemen about 1610 by the legendary Muslim pilgrim
Baba Budan.

Although coffee did not not become an object of trade until the fiteenth century-- when Yeman began exporting parched beans to Mecca, Cairo, and Istanbul, and in 1640 to Amsterdam--by the end of the twentieth century its value as a commodity in the world trade was second only to that of oil.
More than fifty countries export coffee today, and twenty million small farmers, many of them in developing countries, cultivate it.


The United States, Germany, and Japan import the greatest quanity of coffee, followed by Italy and France. Brazil exports the most green coffee beans, of coffee is volatile, depending on weather and other conditions that affect supply and demand.

The International Coffee Organization and the Association of Coffee Producing Countries try to maintain a stable market.

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Turkish coffee is never actually boiled if properly prepared. Like that of a good espresso, its surface should be coated with a froth created in its preparation.

A teaspooon or more of very finely ground dark-roast coffee and a cup ofcold water are stirred together and slowly heated in a cezve or ibrik- - a copper pot with a narrow neck and a long handle(for easy removal of pot from heat).



The brew is heated slowly until the liquid almost boils, cooled slightly, and returned to the fire a second and a third time, each time caught just before the boil, as the liquid begins to rise in the pot.



Traditionally a Turkish bride-to-be serves coffee to both families, and the care with which she prepares it either signals her happiness or tests her competence.
The coffee is poured into small porcelain cups without handles, foam on top and grounds sinking to the bottom.

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