The Best Coffee in the World Comes From Yemen

News flash: You’ve been thinking about mocha all wrong. The espresso drink with Hershey’s syrup poured into it? That’s the coffee world’s equivalent of fake news.

To really drink mocha coffee, you’ll have to pay up—we’re talking up to $240 per pound—for the hard-to-find, chocolatey beans that hail from Mokha, Yemen.

For decades, coffee insiders have complained that Yemeni coffee had dipped in quality, wasn’t traceable, and had weird quality defects. But most also knew that a good cup of Yemeni Udaini, as the varietal is called, could convert coffee haters into third-wave believers.

Now, these high-quality Yemeni beans are being imported to the United States for the first time since the advent of specialty coffee, thanks to the social enterprise-turned-coffee roaster, Port of Mokha, named for the port in Yemen from which the first coffee shipments began coming in the 1400s. The beans are fast gaining acclaim as some of the best in the world, with industry-wide recognition that is bringing positive headlines to a war-torn nation.


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