The Origin Story of Yemen Mocha Coffee Beans | What is the Price of Yemen Mocha Coffee?

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Yemen Mocha: The Last Living Monument in the Coffee World

Possessing the world's most unique, rich, and fascinatingly complex aroma: "red wine fragrance, wild flavor, dried fruit notes, blueberry, grape, cinnamon, tobacco, sweet spices, woody notes, and even chocolate..." You can see all sorts of adjectives used to describe Yemen Mocha coffee.

The Homeland of "Mocha" -- Yemen

Speaking of Yemeni coffee, one must mention "Mocha." Everyone has heard of "Mocha coffee," but what exactly is "Mocha"?

The answer to this question comes in many forms. Some say Mocha is a specific origin, while in some people's minds, Mocha is a sweet chocolate coffee. In fact, authentic "Mocha coffee" is only produced in the Republic of Yemen on the southwestern Arabian Peninsula, growing on steep mountain slopes at altitudes of 3,000 to 8,000 feet, making it the world's most ancient coffee.

As early as 500 years ago, Yemen (also transliterated as "Yemen") was already producing coffee in ancient ways. In the early 17th century, the first Yemeni coffee sold to Europe was exported through the ancient small port of Mocha, astonishing Europeans and leading them to call the delicious coffee from Mocha port "Mocha coffee." This is the origin of the term "Mocha coffee."

Ethiopia, the neighboring country across the Red Sea, also used Mocha port to export coffee, so Ethiopian sun-processed coffee is often called Mocha (such as Mocha-Harrar). Today, the old port of Mocha has long been abandoned due to sediment deposition (now called Al Makha), with exports handled by the northwestern port of Hodeida. However, people have long been accustomed to the name Mocha, and the fame of Mocha has spread far and wide.

Dark-roasted Yemeni coffee often reveals chocolate-like bittersweet notes, influencing today's chocolate-flavored specialty coffees to also be labeled with the term "Mocha." Therefore, when you see the words "Mocha coffee," it might refer to pure Yemeni coffee, neighboring Ethiopian coffee, or simply mean "chocolate-flavored specialty coffee." Regardless, for discerning coffee connoisseurs, only true Yemeni coffee deserves to be called "Mocha coffee."

The term "Mocha" has various spellings: Moka, Moca, and Mocca are all common spellings. On Yemeni coffee sacks and documents, I've seen up to four local spellings: "Mokha," "Makha," "Morkha," and "Mukha" - all representing the same meaning.

Yemen Mocha is the pioneer of world coffee trade and has made indelible contributions to spreading delicious coffee worldwide. In the 17th century, Yemen Mocha, known as "Arabian coffee" (this is also the origin of the later "Arabica" species name!), crossed oceans to reach Italy and other European Catholic countries. For more than 150 years thereafter, Yemeni coffee remained the only coffee origin sold to Europe.

In ancient times, conservative Catholic countries often considered extraordinarily wonderful things to be evil, once burdening coffee with inexplicable sin. Until the Vatican Pope, who also loved coffee, declared coffee as a Catholic beverage and blessed those who drank it, coffee began to spread widely throughout Europe. Although Ethiopia was the first country to discover coffee, it was Yemen that made coffee flourish.

The Last Living Monument in the Coffee World

Today, Yemeni coffee farmers still produce coffee using the same methods as 500 years ago. Coffee berries grow naturally on trees without any artificial fertilizers or pesticides. In summer, they receive nourishment from the mountain slopes' small amounts of rain and mist, flowering and fruiting. In the dry winter, mature coffee berries are allowed to hang on trees to naturally air-dry - this is a very unique and rare practice, as only Arabia's extremely dry climate and intense sun exposure allows this. In other coffee origins, the same practice could cause coffee berries to rot on the trees.

Ripe or dried coffee berries naturally fall from trees, are shaken down, or are picked. Nearly a quarter of Yemen's total population - the coffee farmers - spread the berries with pulp on their rooftops, in front of their homes in low sheds, or even directly on the mud ground, receiving exposure to the intense dry winter sun. After the fruit skin and pulp dry, old-style stone mills (two stone mills stacked together) are used to grind away the dried hard shells and pulp, and the coffee beans are processed!

To this day, a few coffee farmers in Yemen still use animals (such as camels, donkeys) as power sources for stone mills. Compared to Central and South American countries that use advanced mechanical equipment to process large quantities of coffee beans, or even neighboring Kenya with its short coffee history, Yemen Mocha is simply the last living monument in the coffee world! Did you know? The Yemeni coffee you drink today is fundamentally not much different from the "Arabian coffee" that European nobles and merchants enjoyed hundreds of years ago in Europe's oldest cafes in Venice's St. Mark's Square.

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