The history of coffee began in Ethiopia, where coffee arabica (Coffea arabica) grew as a bush. Initially the fruit was used whole by the local populations, who either chewed it or ground it into small lumps. The earliest reliable reference to coffee consumption or knowledge of coffee trees appears in the mid-15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen.

The origin of coffee and the discovery of its properties also gave rise to several myths. The most important is known as the legend of the dancing goat and attributes the discovery of the properties of coffee to an Ethiopian shepherd. Kaldi noticed that when his animals ate the fruits of the coffee plant during the day they became more active, while at night they had difficulty to sleep.