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What Are the Characteristics of Yemeni Coffee and Yemen Mocha Coffee Beans? How to Drink Yemeni Coffee?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). Most mocha drinkers know that hot chocolate is a mixture of chocolate syrup or powder with coffee, but for coffee connoisseurs - this is equivalent to a fake Louis Vuitton bag. Yemeni coffee is priced at $173 per pound in the United States. Or you can return to the war-torn country

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

Most mocha drinkers know that hot chocolate is a mixture of chocolate syrup or powder with coffee, but for coffee connoisseurs - this is equivalent to a fake Louis Vuitton bag.

Yemeni coffee is priced at $173 per pound in the United States. Or you can return to the war-torn Yemeni coastal city of Mocha to find that hard-to-find mocha coffee.

Mokha is remembered as the core of Yemen's 200-year trade monopoly in coffee sales. It was from this port - its point of origin - that the chocolate coffee cocktail popular in the West and the rest of the world got its name.

Yemen exported all its coffee from the port of Mokha, and it traveled around the world known as mocha coffee... The port was very dependent on the product it transported.

According to the World Coffee Research Institute, the first archaeological evidence of coffee consumption as a beverage was found in the city of Zabid, Yemen.

The Origins of Coffee Cultivation

In the 15th century, coffee began to be cultivated within Yemen to meet local demand. In 1450, Yemeni Islamic Sufi practitioners first started drinking coffee to stay awake during late-night prayers. This led to the transformation of hillsides into terraced slopes, and people invented agricultural techniques for growing coffee.

Yemeni coffee is full of wildness, rusticity, and truly captivating body. Yemen is completely different from other coffee-producing countries. Lack of water, arid climate, and barren land have made the coffee varieties that survive in Yemen different from the delicately cultivated varieties of other major coffee nations.

Unique Growing Conditions

Compared to Arabia Yemen, the climate of Central and South America is like a fully equipped greenhouse. These unfavorable factors have caused the gradual decline of Yemen's coffee industry. However, due to these factors, Yemeni coffee flavors exhibit uncontrollable primitive wildness. Traditionally, no chemicals were used in growing coffee in Yemen. The coffee is said to be wild, usually rich, with intense wine-like acidity.

The uniqueness of Yemeni coffee lies in its dry processing. It is also known as the "natural process" and is the oldest method, considered the simplest and most organic approach.

Some believe that the drying process gives the coffee a sweet and rich fruity aroma. The flavor is often described as complex, very earthy and deep, with a distinctive taste.

The World Coffee Research Institute states that although Arabica coffee beans come from Ethiopia, the genetic base of the Bourbon kingdom comes from coffee trees in the city of Mocha. Bourbon is said to be famous for its rich buttery chocolate flavors, as well as their sweetness and very light fruit notes.

Yemen Mocha: A Coffee Legend

Yemen was the first country to use coffee as a cash crop. Legend has it that in the 6th century, Islamic Sufi pilgrims introduced it from Ethiopia. The most correct spelling should be Al-Mahka, which is the Arabic spelling. It grows on steep terrain with little rainfall, barren land, and insufficient sunlight - unique, difficult, and unfavorable conditions for coffee growth. However, these conditions have cultivated an irreplaceable Yemen Mocha. Most wild Yemeni beans are unmanaged, naturally mature and fall to dry, with farmers only doing the work of gathering them. The overall style is "wild" or "natural" with earthy flavors and extremely high complexity. For some, it's pungent with spice notes, but无论如何, you must find time to try it. If you fall deeply in love with it, that will be the beginning of a whole new coffee journey.