No one knows exactly when the Arabica coffee plant was first cultivated. However, almost all literature agrees that this plant originates from Abyssinia, an area in Africa which now includes the countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea. From Abyssinia Arabica coffee was brought by the Arabs to Yemen, then Europeans spread it throughout the world.

Coffee as a drink was first popularized by the Arabs. The oldest literature on coffee beans comes from the records of Al Razi, a medical expert who lived in the 9th century. Europeans got to know coffee from Arab traders in the 16th century.

These commodities are traded at the port of Mocha, Yemen. For many centuries Arab traders monopolized the coffee bean trade. Until 1616 a Dutch managed to bring Arabica coffee plants out of Mocha harbour.

There are two kinds of Arabica coffee that Europeans brought from Yemen. First, the cultivar brought to Java then spread to South Asia and Central America known as Typica. Second, the cultivar brought to Brazil via La Reunion is known as Bourbon, see picture above.3 Both cultivars are believed to be the source of the Arabica coffee plants that exist today.

At the end of the 17th century European nations began to produce their own coffee plants in their colonies spread across Asia and America. They began to dominate the world coffee bean trade and ended the domination of Arab traders. Almost all of the coffee traded at that time was of the arabica type. The Netherlands is the world's largest coffee supplier with a production base in Indonesia, see coffee history.

In 1878 almost all coffee plantations in Indonesia were damaged by an outbreak of leaf rust or Hemileia vastatrix. Then the Dutch replaced the damaged plants with liberika types. 12 years later, the Liberika coffee plant experienced the same disease. After doing research, in 1907 the Dutch again replaced liberika with robusta.

Since then coffee plantations in Indonesia have been dominated by Robusta coffee plants. Nationally, Arabica coffee production in Indonesia is only 17%, while Robusta is almost 83%. The rest with insignificant numbers are liberika and excelsa types.

Currently Arabica coffee is mostly produced by countries in South America, Central America and Africa. Brazil is the largest arabica coffee producing country in the world, followed by Colombia and Ethiopia.