Coffee probably derives its name from the Arabic "gahwah", although some etymologists connect it with the name Kaffa, a province in southwest Ethiopia reputed to be the birthplace of coffee. Coffee plants that are believed to have been growing wild in Daffa were taken to southern Arabia and placed under cultivation there about 500 years ago. The original name is reflected by the words adopted for coffee in various languages; for example: Chinese, kai-frey; Danish and Swedish, kaffee; Dutch, koffie; Finnish, kahvi; French, Spanish and Portuguese, cafe; German, kaffe; Greek, kafeo; Hungarian, kave; Italian, caffe; Japaneese, kehi; Latin, coffea; Persian, qehve; Polish, kawa; Rumanian, cafea; Russian, kofe; Turkish, kahve.

The history of coffee, although vague and obscure, is rich in legend. One of the tales surrounding the discovery of coffee is that of Kaldi, a goat herder. Bewildered by the weird antics of his flock, Kaldi is supposed (about A.D. 850) to have eaten berries of the evergreen bush on which the goats were feeding and, overjoyed at the feeling of exhilaration that he experienced, has been pictured as dashing off in excitement to proclaim his great find to the world.

The stimulating effect of coffee was soon discovered and taken advantage of in connection with the long religious service of the Muslims; but the strictly orthodox or conservative section of the priesthood claimed that it was an intoxicating beverage prohibited by the Koran. Severe penalties were threatened by those who used it. Nevertheless, coffee drinking spread rapidly among Arabian Muslims, and its growth and use became general in Arabia.

The early record of coffee in Europe, where it was introduced into one country after another during the 16th and 17th centuries, is filled with accounts of its use as a religious, political, and medical potion, its rises and falls in favor, and its prohibition or approval. Coffee gained its first real popularity as a beverage in the coffee houses of London.

In the first known coffee advertisement, a handbill produced in 1652 (original in the British museum), proclaimed that coffee "quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome...is good against sore eyes... neither laxative nor astringent.

Continental Europe, too, became well implanted with the idea of coffee, and the coffeehouses flourished in most of these countries later in the 17th century. In the major cities of North America (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia), coffeehouses also became popular, starting about 1689. The first license to sell coffee in the Merchants' coffeehouses, established in New York in 1737, is claimed by some authorities to have been the "birthplace of the American Union".

Until the close of the 17th century, the world's rather limited supply of coffee was obtained almost entirely from the province of Yemen in southern Arabia. But, with the increasing popularity of the beverage, the propagation of the plant spread rapidly from southern Arabia to Ceylon (1658), to Java and other islands of the Netherlands Indies starting about 1696, Haiti, and Santo Domingo in 1715, Dutch Guiana (Surinam) in 1718, Martinique in 1723, Brazil 1727, Jamaica 1730, Cuba 1748, Puerto Rico 1755, Costa Rica 1779, Venezuela 1784, Mexico 1790, Columbia late 18th century, El Salvador 1840. Coffee cultivation was started in the Hawaiian Islands (Kona District, Island of Hawaii in 1825.

One of the most dramatic stories that explains how coffee was brought to the new world is that of Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, a young French naval officer assigned as captain of infantry at Martinique. In 1723 ( some authorities set the date as 1720), de Clieu, while on a visit to France, heard that the Dutch had succeeded in transplanting coffee from Arabia to the East Indies; he became determined to carry the cultivation to Martinique, where the climate resembled that of the East Indies. The few coffee plants then being cultivated in Paris were guarded in the royal hothouse of Louis XV. De Clieu obtained one ( some waiters say two or three) of the precious plants. During his return trip across the Atlantic, De Clieu recorded that for more than a month he was obliged to share his scanty ration of water with his tiny coffee plant "upon which my happiest hopes were founded and which was the source of my delight." De Clieu's little tree was finally planted in Martinique and carefully nursed to its first harvest of coffee cherries, from which seeds a big majority of the coffee plants in the Americas are said to be descended. By 1777, three years after the death of De Clieu, there were nearly 19,000,000 coffee trees in Martinique.

By the 20th century, coffee has become responsible for much of the income of many countries lying between the Tropic Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Although practically every country within this area produced some coffee, the greatest concentration of production became centered in the western hemisphere. This began to change, however, toward the middle of the century as the growth of coffee in Africa began to assume major importance.