13 December 2019
Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, Sufi monks get the credit for the cultivation and drinking of coffee beans in Yemen – where, thanks to its port in the city of Mokha, Dutch traders introduced coffee to Europe in the early sixteenth century.
If you’re a coffee professional, you’ve likely read the adventure story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, beautifully told by Dave Eggers in the New York Times best-selling book The Monk of Mokha (2018), and of Mokhtar’s export business, launched in 2016, called ‘Port of Mokha.’
But have you heard about Queen of Mokha coffee, and the Yemeni company that exports it, called Rover Bird?
In February 2019, I interviewed its visionary founder, Sameeha Mohammed – likely Yemen’s only female exporter – at the Question Coffee Café in Kigali, Rwanda.
Excerpts from that interview are now published in Barista Magazine Online!
