While the coffee plant originated in Ethiopia, coffee as a beverage is said to have originated in Yemen between the 14th and 15th centuries when Sufi monks consumed it to stay up all night to meditate. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Yemen's main source of income came from coffee exports to the rest of the world, and the country prospered from this crop. However, as coffee consumption increased, the colonizing powers of the time began to cultivate it in their colonies, so the market became saturated and Yemeni coffee could not continue to compete in the international market and today its share in the international market is negligible.

In 2014, a civil war broke out in Yemen that created a terrible humanitarian crisis that dramatically affected a large part of the population that was the victim of armed struggles and a blockade that generated famine, the collapse of the health system and the destruction of economic life in the country. Yemen is today the poorest country in the region and the conflict has generated large numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees.

Despite these sad events, in recent years some private initiatives and non-governmental organizations have emerged seeking to promote the cultivation and marketing of Yemeni coffee again because they have ancestral knowledge of several generations of coffee farmers. What they seek is to support the development of the sector so that Yemeni coffee recovers the glory of bygone times and serves as a nascent economic activity that provides development and recovery for the country.