In the beginning, According to legend, coffee was discovered around 800 AD by a goatherd in Ethiopia. The goat herd, Kaldi, was tending his flock (do you even say that for goats) and saw that they were acting a little strange. They has eaten some bright red cherries from a tree, and were acting friskily – actually, they were in fact dancing.
Curious, Kaldi ate one of the cherries and noticed the surprising effect – what we now call wired. He picked a cherry heavy branch from the tree, and brought his bounty to the local monastery. A monk boiled some of the cherries in water, then drank a sip of the brew. He found it to be very bitter, and angrily threw the branch in the fireplace. The fire roasted the beans, and the monk became intoxicated by the fantastic aroma of roasted coffee.
OK – I get it. The story of Kaldi is pretty unlikely. I mean, come on. It is impossible to say what really happened, but we do know this.
We know with more certainty is that the flesh outer cherry was eaten by slaves taken from present day Sudan into Yemen and Arabia, through the great port of its day, Mocha, now synonymous with coffee. Coffee was certainly being cultivated in Yemen by the 15th century and probably much earlier than that.