Who first discovered coffee remains disputed. There are several legends. According to the first legend, the Prophet Muhammad was the first to try coffee. A second legend highlights Yemeni shepherds. A third legend speaks of Ethiopian shepherds. Today, historians are convinced that coffee originates from the Ethiopian region of Kaffa, and that the drink was named after this region.

The Ethiopians were aware of the effects of coffee, but they consumed the coffee fruit raw. Raw coffee has a very wild and bitter taste. The process of roasting and brewing coffee was later discovered in neighboring Yemen in the 15th century.

In 1538, Suleiman the Magnificent conquered Yemen. At that time, Yemen already had a well-developed tradition of coffee drinking. The Turks quickly adopted this custom, and around the year 1550, the first kahvehane (coffee house) opened in Istanbul. The word “kahvehane” later evolved into the word “café” or “coffeehouse.” Coffee was prepared in a pot called a cezve, which gave rise to the word dzezva in other languages. The method of preparing coffee was then adopted by the Balkan peoples (Greeks, Serbs, Bosniaks, etc.), Ethiopians, and Venetians. The Venetians subsequently spread coffee throughout Italy and Western Europe.

Gradually, cafés began to open across Europe: in 1645 in Venice, 1650 in Oxford, 1652 in London, 1659 in Marseille, 1672 in St. Germain, 1685 in Vienna, 1689 in Paris, and so on.

The first espresso machine was developed in 1884 by the Italian Angelo Moriondo in Turin. It operated using steam pressure. Since the coffee was prepared very quickly, it began to be called espresso. Luigi Bezzera from Milan further developed the espresso machine in 1901 and established the standards still used today for preparing espresso coffee.

Cappuccino, however, does not originate from Italy, but from Vienna. There are several different stories about this. The most likely version today is the story of the Capuchin monk d’Aviano, who always drank his bitter coffee with sugar and cream at a Viennese café. Since the coffee with cream resembled the color of a Capuchin monk’s habit, it was called a Kapuziner (Capuchin). During the First World War, Austrian soldiers brought the recipe to Italy. The Italians replaced the cream with milk and began calling the drink Cappuccino.

Source:

Ali Halit Diker, In Turkey, your coffee comes with a side of destiny, CNN, 26. 8. 2025.   

Johannes Lacker, Der Weg zu modernen Espresso-Maschine, Kaffee Rauscher, 7. 4. 2020.

Die Geschichte des Kaffees, Deutscher Kaffeeverband, 27. 8. 2025.

Giorgia Cannarella, Cappuccino: Das berühmte italienische Getränk, das gar nicht italienisch ist, VICE magazin, 18. 5. 2022.