Coffee History: From Ethiopia to Switzerland

The history of coffee is, to a good extent, made up of stories. We have separated what is documented from what is legend – and along the way found a Swiss chapter that hardly ever gets told: this country keeps 20,180 tonnes of coffee as compulsory stocks.

A word up front: legends aren't worthless. They tell us what people thought about coffee. They just aren't sources – and we say which is which.

Where does coffee come from?

From southern Ethiopia. That is the only statement about its origin that is undisputed in the scientific literature. The wild stands of Arabica grow in the mountain forests in the south-west of the country.

Animation 1 · Eight documented dates on a real timeline

Year documented in the recordsYear uncertain: attributed or only indirectly datedRunning marker: evenly spaced through time

Equal distance = equal number of years. The years alternate between two rows so that they don't overlap. The selection only shows events with a source – the long gap after 1685 doesn't mean nothing happened.

1. 1470/71 · Yemen (year uncertain) – Coffee comes into use. Careful, this is a year of death: coffee is merely attributed to the scholar al-Dhabhani.
2. 1511 · Mecca – The first coffee ban for which a record exists. The market inspector Khair Beg took action against coffee. A year later, the ban no longer applied.
3. around 1555 · Constantinople (year uncertain) – The first large coffee houses in a city. Only one Ottoman chronicler reports this, and much later – hence the “around”.
4. 1582 · Augsburg – The first printed account of coffee in Europe. The physician Leonhard Rauwolf describes “Chaube” after his journey of 1573–1575.
5. 1618 · Switzerland – Coffee is mentioned publicly here for the first time. The traveller to the Orient Johann Jakob Ammann makes the “Turkish drink” known.
6. 1685 · Vienna – The first official permission to serve coffee publicly. On 17 January, Johannes Diodato receives this “privilege” from the Emperor.
7. 1912 · Switzerland – The first factory for decaffeinated coffee. The company is German: Kaffee HAG from Bremen, founded in 1906. Only the factory was located here.
8. 1938 · Orbe, Vaud – Nescafé comes onto the market on 1 April, developed by Max Morgenthaler. One museum source gives 1937 – we go with 1938.

Sources in the figure: Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (1618, 1912, 1938) · Wien Geschichte Wiki (1685) · R. S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses 1985 (Yemen, Mecca) · Ibrahim Peçevi, 17th c. (Constantinople).

How much truth is there in the Kaldi legend?

Everyone knows the story: a goatherd named Kaldi notices that his animals don't sleep after eating certain red fruits. A monk tries the fruits, stays awake during prayer, and coffee is discovered.

There is no contemporary source for this story. It first appears in print in 1671, in a work by the Maronite orientalist Antonio Fausto Naironi, published in Rome. The alleged event is usually dated to the 9th century – roughly eight hundred years before it was first written down. The Swiss industry association, too, explicitly lists it under the heading “The Legend”.

The name “Kaldi” does not appear at all in the specialist literature on early coffee history that we examined. Anyone who gives a year for it is giving a number without a source.

How did coffee reach Yemen?

This is where the sources get better. The earliest traceable account names the Sufi scholar Muhammad al-Dhabhani, who is said to have spread coffee in Aden. His date of death is documented by two independent Arabic sources: 875 in the Islamic calendar, which is 1470 or 1471.

The social context is the interesting part: coffee was drunk in the circles of the Sufi orders to stay awake during the nightly remembrance of God. From there it spread among scholars and craftsmen, “seeking help with their studies and with other professions and crafts”, as the account puts it.

This account, too, comes with a caveat. The historian Ralph Hattox, whose standard work is our main source for this section, himself notes that the report as a whole is vague and contains more than a little legend – and that even the Arab chronicler who passes it down becomes sceptical in the end.

When did the first coffee house appear?

Before the 16th century, there is no evidence of any establishment that could be called a coffee house. The first reference to a place where people gathered to drink coffee and enjoy each other's company comes from the official report on the events in Mecca in 1511.

Those events were a ban. On the night before Friday, 20 June 1511, Khaʾir Beg al-Miʿmar, Mamluk governor and market inspector of Mecca, took action against coffee drinking. It is the first thoroughly documented attempt to prohibit coffee.

Coffee reached Cairo in the first decade of the 16th century, initially in the circles around the Azhar Mosque, and soon afterwards in the surrounding streets. According to the Ottoman chronicler Ibrahim Peçevi, coffee and the coffee house arrived in Constantinople around 1555 as a complete package – introduced by two Syrians named Hakm and Shams.

The year 1554 is often quoted for Constantinople. The specialist literature says “around 1555” or “around the middle of the 16th century”. That is why we stick with “around 1554/55” and don't commit to a single year.

How much truth is there in the Viennese legend of 1683?

None. And that is unusually well documented.

The story goes like this: after the Ottomans withdraw from Vienna in 1683, sacks of coffee beans are left behind, and Georg Franz Kolschitzky uses them to open the first Viennese coffee house. The City of Vienna writes in its city encyclopaedia: “It is not true that Koltschitzky opened the first coffee house in Vienna” – and calls the story a legend scientifically refuted by the historian Karl Teply. The Wien Museum, too, lists the famous picture of the “first coffee house” as a depiction of a supposed establishment.

The legend only came about in 1783, a hundred years after the siege, spread by the Piarist father Gottfried Uhlich. What is documented, by contrast: the first Viennese privilege to serve coffee was granted on 17 January 1685 to the Armenian Johannes Deodat. And as early as 1645, expenses for coffee were recorded in Vienna for the first time – for Turkish envoys.

When did coffee arrive in Switzerland?

The knowledge came early, the drink late. In Switzerland it was the traveller to the Orient Johann Jakob Ammann who made the “Turkish drink” publicly known in 1618. That is the earliest date given by the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.

Cafés as establishments, on the other hand, only emerged in the late 18th century in the larger towns, following Italian and French models. Confectioners from Graubünden, who were already well known in Venice and northern Italy in the 18th century, had close ties to the world of the emerging coffee houses.

Among well-to-do town dwellers, drinking coffee was an established habit by the end of the 18th century. In the countryside it spread as coffee with milk or as coffee porridge – in Ticino, at that same time, it was not yet common at all.

We found no reliable source for specific coffee bans in Swiss cantons. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland speaks of “fierce controversies” on medical, moral and economic grounds, but mentions no bans. The well-known bans of the 18th century concern Prussia and Hesse, not Switzerland – anyone who applies them to Switzerland does so without evidence. Nor were we able to verify years for the first coffee house in Zurich, Bern or Basel.

What has Switzerland contributed to the history of coffee?

More than you might think – and most of it in processing.

Two years circulate for Nescafé. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland and Nestlé itself give 1938; the blog of the Swiss National Museum gives 1937, but contradicts itself internally and dates its own image captions to 1938. We go with 1938.

The Swiss Water Process, the chemical-free water decaffeination method, is often described as a Swiss invention from 1933. What is documented are the company and the location of today's plant near Vancouver, as well as its commercialisation by Coffex S.A. from 1980. We found no primary source for the year 1933 or for a Swiss origin – the company itself makes no dated claim to it on its website.

Why does Switzerland store 20,000 tonnes of coffee?

Because here, coffee counts as a good that matters for the country's supply – and that is legally binding. The Ordinance on the Compulsory Stockpiling of Foodstuffs and Animal Feed lists in Article 1 what is subject to compulsory stockpiling: sugar, coffee, rice, edible oils and fats, as well as cereals and animal feed.

Animation 2 · Switzerland's coffee reserve

Reference date 31 December 2025 – there are no newer official figures yet (report: June 2026). In plain terms, compulsory stocks means: the Confederation stipulates how much coffee companies must keep in stock at all times. For coffee, that is 17 companies; they are joined together in a cooperative (réservesuisse). It is paid for through a surcharge on imports.

The axis for the months starts at zero and is divided linearly. In 2019, the Confederation wanted to abolish the coffee reserve: coffee, it argued, provides hardly any energy. The industry objected, and the Confederation backed down. In 2023, the quantity was even increased – gradually until the end of 2026.

Source: réservesuisse, Annual Report 2025 (published June 2026); Ordinance SR 531.215.11. The “3 months” come from réservesuisse. Depending on the assumed annual consumption, it is 3 to 4.

In 2019, the Confederation proposed in a consultation that coffee should no longer be classified as a vital good – on the grounds that coffee contains practically no energy, as it is low in protein and fat. The compulsory stocks were to be run down by the end of 2022.

In summer 2019, the industry rejected this with a clear vote. The responsible department then withdrew the proposal and recommended to the Federal Council that the stocks be continued. In 2023, the compulsory stock quantity was even increased, from 18,750 to 20,640 tonnes by the end of 2026.

Status at the end of 2025: 20,180 tonnes, stored by 17 cooperative members, enough for around three months of national demand – this is a model calculation by réservesuisse based on an assumed annual consumption; depending on the assumption, it is three to four months. Around CHF 3.3 million in compensation was paid out for the storage, which works out at CHF 16.50 per 100 kilograms.

How much coffee does Switzerland drink?

For 2025, the industry association Procafé gives a per capita consumption of around 9 kilograms, based on green coffee, with domestic consumption of about 60,000 tonnes. Historically, the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland gives an average of 8.6 kilograms for the years 1990 to 1998 – which put Switzerland in the middle of the European field at the time.

EstimateThree caveats that rarely come with the figure. First, the 9-kilo figure is an extrapolated average from an industry association, not measured consumption and not an official statistic; Procafé itself points out that the 60,000 tonnes for 2025 do not match the three-year average of around 84,000 tonnes. Second, Switzerland is a major re-exporter: in 2025, around 234,000 tonnes of coffee were imported and around 174,000 tonnes exported. Rankings based on import figures therefore systematically overestimate Swiss consumption. We were unable to check a reliable international ranking – the relevant ICO data is only available for a fee. Third, the 9 doesn't fit the 60,000 tonnes: spread across around nine million people, 60,000 tonnes come to about 6.7 kilograms. You only arrive at 9 kilograms with the three-year average of 84,000 tonnes. We give both figures as Procafé gives them and don't recalculate them.

Frequently asked questions about the history of coffee

Where does coffee originally come from?

From southern Ethiopia. From there it reached Yemen, where the first verifiable consumption and cultivation began in the 15th century. Knowledge of it only reached Europe in 1582, through the travel account of the Augsburg physician Leonhard Rauwolf.

How much truth is there in the story of Kaldi the goatherd?

It is a legend, not history handed down to us. There is no contemporary source for it. It first appears in print in 1671, in a work by the Maronite scholar Antonio Fausto Naironi in Rome – roughly eight hundred years after the alleged event.

Who spread coffee in Yemen?

According to the traditional account, the Sufi scholar Muhammad al-Dhabhani, who died in 1470 or 1471. Coffee was drunk in the circles of the Sufi orders during the nightly remembrance of God, to stay awake – the earliest documented social context of coffee drinking.

When was the first coffee ban?

In 1511 in Mecca. On the night before Friday, 20 June 1511, the Mamluk governor and market inspector Khaʾir Beg al-Miʿmar had action taken against coffee drinking. This is the first thoroughly documented attempt at a ban.

Is it true that the Turks left coffee behind outside Vienna in 1683?

No. The City of Vienna and the Wien Museum explicitly describe the story of Georg Franz Kolschitzky as a scientifically refuted legend. It was only spread in 1783, a hundred years after the siege, by a Piarist father. The first Viennese privilege to serve coffee was granted on 17 January 1685 to the Armenian Johannes Deodat.

When did coffee arrive in Switzerland?

The traveller to the Orient Johann Jakob Ammann made the “Turkish drink” publicly known in Switzerland in 1618. Cafés as establishments, however, only emerged in the late 18th century in the larger towns, following Italian and French models.

What has Switzerland contributed to the history of coffee?

Above all, instant coffee: Nescafé came onto the Swiss market on 1 April 1938, developed by the chemist Max Morgenthaler and produced in Orbe in the canton of Vaud. As early as 1912, the German Kaffee-Handels-AG had opened the first factory for decaffeinated coffee in Switzerland.

Why does Switzerland keep compulsory stocks of coffee?

Because coffee is listed as a good that matters for the country's supply in the Ordinance on the Compulsory Stockpiling of Foodstuffs and Animal Feed. At the end of 2025, 17 cooperative members were storing 20,180 tonnes, enough for around three months of national demand – a model calculation based on an assumed annual consumption; depending on the assumption, three to four months. A proposal to abolish the stocks failed in 2019 because of opposition from the industry.

Where this story begins, you can drink it

The beginning of this whole journey lies in the mountain forests of Ethiopia – and that is exactly where two of our coffees come from. Bright Cassis and Wild Peach grow on Tero Farm in the Guji region, at 1,800 to 2,200 metres, as heirloom varieties on volcanic soil.

This is not an attempt at reconstruction and not a “this is how it tasted back then” – nobody can back up claims like that. It is simply the same region coffee came from before it reached Yemen, Vienna, Paris and, eventually, Switzerland. If you would rather have the other side of the story in your cup, Italian espresso with body and crema: Cozy Nut or Very Nutty, our pure Robusta from southern India.

Both belong to the same story. Which of them belongs in your cup is up to you – as always.

What now?

The loveliest thing about this story is that at almost every point it was a social event before it became an economic one. Coffee was first a drink for nightly prayers, then for scholars, then for newspaper readers and political debates – and only after that a commodity with an exchange price and compulsory stocks.

If you want to know what lies behind it botanically: Arabica and Canephora. If you want to follow the path of individual lines: Typica and Geisha. And if you simply want a good coffee: our coffee beans and the workshops in Bern and Zurich. We are United by Coffee – for around 550 documented years.

Sources and context

• Information about our own roasts comes from our product data and is our own in-house information.
• Swiss coffee history, Rauwolf 1582, Ammann 1618, coffee substitutes, HAG 1912, Nescafé 1938: Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, articles Kaffee (Albert Pfiffner) and Cafés (Lokale) (François de Capitani).
• Yemen, Sufi orders, al-Dhabhani, Mecca 1511, Cairo, Constantinople: Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses. The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East, University of Washington Press, 1985.
• Kaldi legend, first printing 1671: Antonio Fausto Naironi, De saluberrima potione cahue, seu cafe nuncupata discursus, Rome 1671; also classified as a legend by Procafé.
• Vienna: Wien Geschichte Wiki of the City of Vienna, articles Kaffeehaus and Georg Franz Koltschitzky; Wien Museum, online collection.
• Nescafé: Nestlé Switzerland on the 75th anniversary; Swiss National Museum, blog post on Max Morgenthaler.
• Compulsory stocks: Ordinance on the Compulsory Stockpiling of Foodstuffs and Animal Feed, SR 531.215.11; réservesuisse, annual reports 2019 and 2025; WBF, consultation documents 2019 and 2023.
• Consumption figures: Procafé, Statistische Angaben über Kaffee, 2026; import and export figures from the réservesuisse annual report 2025.
• Not verified and marked as such in the text: specific cantonal coffee bans, years for the first coffee houses in Swiss towns, the year 1933 for the Swiss Water Process, an international consumption ranking.