Coffee beans were chewed raw for centuries in Ethiopia and Yemen. An excavation in the Ethiopian highlands where coffee grows wild indicates human gatherers have been eating coffee berries over a hundred thousand years. The fleshy pulp surrounding the coffee bean in Ethiopian coffee has higher sugar content. Being sweet, being nutritious with seeds, nuts and berries generally eaten by humans some speculate for over a million years.
Ugandans were noticed chewing dried coffee beans when the first explorers from Europe were searching for the origins of the Nile River. Green coffee beans were ground up and mixed with fat to macerate, then made into small balls, which were eaten by travelers on long journeys. Some say this is the first trail mix where is the raisins.
Stories in the Southern Arabian Peninsula known as Yemen where Europeans first found the coffee plant cultivated seem to support the "coffee bean" being traded as early as 800 BC. Facts and many stories support trade between Yemen and Ethiopia during this time. Knowing that eating the coffee berry reacts on people and animals, it would be logical that those early traders attempted to trade for this item. Additionally, evidence does not support the coffee plant growing wild in Yemen but demonstrate it must have grown under cultivation instead.
No specific historic event is remembered causing coffee export to Southern Arabia but Ethiopia did invaded Southern Arabia in 525 AD. Some speculated that coffee could have been introduced to the Arabians at this time. Many historians say coffee may have been introduced into Arabia by slave traders who raided Africa in early1000 BC.
Snippets which strongly supporting theories that coffee spread very early in the civilized world trade are coffee's affect on the Arabian people's culture, agriculture, Trade practices and old Arabic stories.
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