A Brief History of the Coffee Bean

It’s no secret that Muffin Break loves coffee. In celebration of our coffee – and our recent announced promise to take a stance on the war on waste – let’s take a look at the evolution of coffee over the centuries, and its trail of footprints across the globe.

History of the word

The word “coffee” has roots in several languages. In Yemen, coffee was coined as qahwah, which was originally a romantic term for wine. It later developed by the Turkish as kahveh, then by the Dutch as koffie and finally, as coffee in English.

Timeline of coffee’s introduction across the globe

Coffee development as a beverage

In the 1960s, awareness for specialty coffee started to grow, inspiring the opening of the very first Starbucks.

Development of coffee came in the form beyond Turkish coffee, evolving into lattes, frappuccinos and mochas.

More recent trends of coffee include cold brew, nitro coffee, coffee in a cone, pressed coffee and coffee-leaf tea.

Today, there is a movement that continues to grow with the increase of cafés like Muffin Break that are proud to be using sustainable, locally roasted, fair trade beans. The trade of coffee has further developed into an art form, with baristas exercising their creativity into every cup poured with latte art.

Recently, there has also been more of a focus on sustainability, with Muffin Break launching a war on waste through our promotion of KeepCups and partnership with Simply Cups. For every takeaway coffee bought, we will pay to have one recycled by Simply Cups!

Let’s work together to combine our love of coffee with a love of the planet. Find out more about our war on waste here.