It may seem strange but coffee hasn't been around forever! In fact it was not discovered until around 600AD in the Middle East and only came into Europe in the 16th Century. In the 500 or so years since then it has spread around the world and become an international trade.

We've attempted to collate as much of the history of coffee as we could find here into the site and divided it up into five distinctive time spans - the ancient legends of the discovery of coffee, the early years of coffee consumption, its' move into Europe, the cultivation in the colonies abroad and finally coffee in the modern day.