It is said that whilst the coffee tree has its roots in Ethiopia, coffee was first consumed in Yemen in 1450. In the early 1700s started to export coffee around the world being the only supplier. By 1800 was producing 6% of the worlds coffee and nowadays is just 0.1%. This happened due to the demand on quantity and low costs, which made the farmers to switch over to other plantations as they were more profitable. Also , the fact that Yemen has been immersed in a civil war since 2014, has not helped, in the last few years this has lead to catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the country. 

Only 3% of the land in Yemen is adequate for farming, water being the major problem. The coffee is grown on terraced land at high altitudes. Also, fertilization of the soil is not very common, with the added problem of decreasing soil nutrients. With this factors and other plus the remoteness of the coffee growing regions, explains in some way the incredible amount and variation of heirloom varieties of arabica in this country. 

Nowadays, Yemeni coffee is grown by producers in small quantities, due to the lack of water natural process methods of cultivations are used which provides the beans with unique and distinctive flavours. 

The local varieties are one of the oldest genotypes in the world, which provides a distinctive cup profile with wild, complex and pungent coffees. Different to other coffees found around the world.