Excited by the discovery, Kaldi took these fruits to his village, where the first coffee infusion in history was consumed. In barely a century and from Ethiopia, coffee spread rather quickly to North Africa, mainly to Egypt, from where it crossed the Mediterranean towards the Middle East, Persia and the Arabian Peninsula before touching down in Italy thanks to the Ottoman Empire. .
The first contact between America and coffee, however, came until the 18th century, when Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, an officer in the French navy, transported it from La Rochelle to Martinique, an island that sixty years later, in 1777, already had, according to official records, 18 million coffee plants.
Suriname, then a Dutch colony, and the Guianas were other coffee epicenters of the time, the starting point for a crop that soon established itself in North America, Central America, and South America, with Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Guatemala. as the main producers in the region.
Today, the so-called Coffee Belt or Coffee Belt crosses more than 70 countries located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, where coffee arrived hand in hand with the colonial empires of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of these, 40 countries are producers.
Main producers in the world (MILLION TONS)*: Brazil: 2.6; Vietnam: 1.6; Colombia: 0.8; Indonesian: 0.6; Ethiopia: 0.4; India: 0.3; Honduras: 0.3; Uganda: 0.2; Mexico: 0.2; Guatemala: 0.2
main consumers (KILOGRAMS PER PERSON AND YEAR)*:
Finland:12, Norway:9.9, Iceland: 9.0, Denmark: 8.7, Netherlands: 8.4, Sweden: 8.2, Switzerland: 7.9, Belgium: 6.8, Luxembourg: 6.5, Canada: 6.5
VARIETIES BY COUNTRY
The two great species of coffee that occur in the world are arabica and robusta, each one of them with unique characteristics. The sweeter and more aromatic Arabica coffee (also more expensive) grows in highlands located between 800 and 2,000 meters of altitude, with temperatures between 15oC and 25oC, and represents 75 percent of all world production.
The robusta, for its part, is more bitter, with more body and richer in caffeine. In addition, it grows close to sea level, at an altitude of 800 meters, with temperatures between 25oC and 30oC and always with direct sunlight on the plantations. From both species, dozens of varieties arise that adapt to the characteristics of each country.
BRAZIL
Species: arabica and robusta.
Main varieties: new world, caturra, icatu, bourbon, catuai.
COLOMBIA
Species: arabica.
Main varieties: caturra and castle