Coffee

Latte and black filtered coffee
Type	Usually hot; can be iced
Origin	Yemen[1][2][3]
Introduced	15th century
Color	Black, dark brown, light brown, beige
Flavor	Distinctive, somewhat bitter
Ingredients	Roasted coffee beans
Standard drinkware	Mug

Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially available. There are also various coffee substitutes.

Coffee production begins when the seeds from coffee cherries (the Coffea plant's fruits) are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The "beans" are roasted and then ground into fine particles. Coffee is brewed from the ground roasted beans, which are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out. It is usually served hot, although chilled or iced coffee is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or already-brewed canned coffee). Sugar, sugar substitutes, milk, and cream are often added to mask the bitter taste or enhance the flavor.

Though coffee has become a global commodity, it has a long history tied closely to food traditions around the Red Sea. The earliest credible reports of coffee drinking pertain to the plant's use among the Sufis of Yemen (southern Arabia) in the middle of the 15th century.^[4][5] Up to the end of the 17th century, most of the world's coffee was imported from Yemen. As it gained in popularity, coffee started to be cultivated in Java in the 17th century and the Americas from the 18th century.^[6]

The two most commonly grown coffee bean types are C. arabica and C. robusta.^[7] Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in the equatorial regions of the Americas, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa. Green, unroasted coffee is traded as an agricultural commodity. The global coffee industry is worth $495.50 billion, as of 2023.^[8] In 2023, Brazil was the leading grower of coffee beans, producing 31% of the world's total, followed by Vietnam. While coffee sales reach billions of dollars annually worldwide, coffee farmers disproportionately live in poverty. Critics of the coffee industry have pointed to its negative impact on the environment, including clearing of land for coffee growing and water use.