Origins and history

Coffee has its historical roots in Ethiopia. The etymology of the word "coffee" reflects its journey through languages and civilisations. Indeed, the term could derive from the Arabic "qahwa", used to designate wine and various beverages, then from the Turkish "kahve", to finally arrive at the word "coffee" in English. There is also a theory on the traces of the word "Kaffa", an Ethiopian region where coffee originates and where the wild coffee tree grows naturally.

In Switzerland, it was Johann Jakob Ammann, the traveller to the East, who first brought public attention to the “Turkish drink” in 1618. From the mid-17th century onwards, the exotic drink also became more widespread in Europe. Coffee, predominantly consumed in newly opened coffee houses and exclusively by men, soon became the object of intense medical, moral and economic controversy. This was not enough, however, to prevent wealthy people in Switzerland from habitually drinking coffee as early as the late 18th century. Meanwhile, in rural areas, coffee consumption mostly took the form of white coffee or coffee puree. Generally, however, the substitutes made of cheaper raw materials (various grains, figs, acorns and especially chicory) remained more usual up until after the Second World War, also due to new consumers in the 19th century such as women, workers and children. In the second half of the 19th century, it became less common for raw coffee to be processed in the coffee houses and households where it was to be drunk and it was increasingly processed at large roasteries. Due to the economic boom and the low price, coffee became an everyday beverage after the Second World War. Nowadays in Switzerland, there are numerous microroasteries, similar to the trend for microbreweries in the beer world.

Botanical aspects, cultivation and harvest

Coffee beans are derived from the drupes (so-called coffe cherry) of various plant species from the Rubiaceae family. The two most important types of coffee plant are coffea arabica (arabica coffee) and coffea canephora (robusta coffee), which have many different cultivars and varieties. Depending on the cultivar and location, there are various grades of quality. Coffee is cultivated in over 50 countries worldwide. There are 124 wild coffee species, currently about 60 % of them are considered endangered.

Harvests are collected once or twice per year. The harvest period lasts up to three months as, even on the same bush, fruits take varying amounts of time to ripen. The “picking method” means ripe fruit are picked by hand. This achieves better quality and is used particularly for arabica coffee. The “stripping method” means all fruit are stripped from the plant regardless of ripeness, which then has to be sold as lower quality. However, quality can be improved by sorting it afterwards. Strip harvesting is mostly used for robusta coffee and arabica coffee grown in Brazil and Ethiopia.

The global average coffee yield is around 680 kg/ha. In Angola, it is only 33 kg/ha, while in Costa Rica it is 1,620 kg/ha and new plantations in Brazil yield 4,200 kg/ha. Producing a 60 kg bag of raw coffee requires the harvests of 100 good, fruitful arabica trees.

Roasting

The vast majority of raw coffee is roasted. A small portion is also used as green coffee (unroasted). Roasting is normally understood to mean heating the coffee beans under dry conditions, normally under atmospheric pressure. When being roasted, the beans undergo various chemical and physical processes. The cultivar and quality of the raw coffee beans, the roasting time and the temperature determine the darkness of the roast and primarily influence the formation of the aroma, the development of flavours and digestibility.

Lighter roasts lead to a rather acidic but less bitter flavour while darker roasts are slightly sweet but bitter tasting. The acidic flavour of coffee is mostly caused by its chlorogenic acid content, which is gradually reduced the more it is roasted. Dark roasts therefore contain less chlorogenic acid than light roasts.

Trading and consumption

Nowadays, along the entire value chain – from trading to manufacturers of machines and sale of processed products – the Swiss coffee industry generates more than CHF 5 billion and therefore makes up about 1% of Switzerland’s gross domestic product. In 2023, Switzerland sourced most of its coffee beans from Latin America: Brazil 25 %, Colombia 15 %, Costa Rica 7 %. In 2024, the Swiss drank an average of 1,237 cups of coffee per person. This places Switzerland at the absolute top in terms of global coffee consumption.