Asia And The Pacific

Baba Budan is widely believed to have smuggled the first fertile coffee seeds out of Arabia and into India during his pilgrimage to Mecca in around 1600. However the real growth of coffee in trade outside of Arabia started with the Dutch. In 1699, the Dutch successfully planted the first coffee plants outside of the Arabian Peninsula on the island of Java, once a colony and now a part of Indonesia. The first harvest was sent to Amsterdam in 1706 along with a seedling. It is this very seedling that would become the progenitor of the coffee plant that makes its way to Martinique with Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu via the botanical garden in Paris. A plant that would become the foundation for the majority of coffee in Central and South America (see The Americas).

The Dutch originated or greatly influenced coffee cultivation and trade in Indonesia and Asia. Their initial planting in Java was so successful it was second only to Mocha in Yemen. These two coffees were brought together to create the first recorded coffee blend - Mocha Java. Indeed, a common nickname for coffee today is “java,” and the Dutch hand can be felt throughout the region.