While the true origins of coffee will always remain shrouded in the mists of time, the most likely story from antiquity is that an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi (in other versions of the story the character is named as a Yemenite Sufi mystic, Shaikh ash-Shadhili) observed goats of unusual vitality and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same stimulation.

When you speak of coffee you are generally talking about Coffea Arabica, a species of coffee which is generally accepted as having originated from the forests of the Ethiopian Highlands. It is this variety that makes up approximately 75-80% of the world’s coffee production.