Qualla: Mokha https://qualla.com/mokha en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mokha https://qualla.com/mokha Mokha: Introduction https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit Gomtu, CC BY 3.0. The coffee never grew in Mokha. It grew in Ethiopia and the highlands of Yemen and came down to the port on camelback, and Mokha took it from the camels and loaded it onto ships that would carry Coffea arabica to Cairo and Istanbul and, eventually, to Amsterdam and London and the coffee houses that transformed European sociability. For three hundred years Mokha was the bottleneck through which the world's coffee flowed. Mocha beans from Sana'a - the Yemeni coffee the traders called Sanani - were prized for their distinctive flavor, and they still are. The Ottoman law that required ships entering the Red Sea to stop at Mokha and pay duty made fortunes. Then the world found other sources. Mokha is now a small fishing port, but the name echoes in coffeehouses everywhere.

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Image: Gomtu | CC BY 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mokha: Before the Ottomans https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit Julien Harneis from Sana'a, Yemen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Based on the ancient Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a Greek-Egyptian navigational manual written in the first century, scholars believe the important ancient emporium of Muza was near present-day Mokha. The exact site has been debated - either Mokha itself, the coastal village of...

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Image: Julien Harneis from Sana'a, Yemen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-before-the-ottomans.mp3 0:06 2 full Mokha: The Coffee Monopoly https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit LBM1948, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mokha became a market for everything that moved through the southern Red Sea - frankincense and myrrh, Dragon's blood and Socotrine aloe, cumin and the Balm of Gilead - but coffee was the commodity that made it famous. From the sixteenth century through the nineteenth, Mokha was ...

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Image: LBM1948 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-the-coffee-monopoly.mp3 0:06 3 full Mokha: Plague and Decline https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit Julien Harneis from Sana'a, Yemen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The eighteenth century brought a plague that killed half of Mokha's population, and the city never fully recovered. The coffee trade continued but other centers - Java in the Dutch East Indies, the French Caribbean, the Spanish colonies - began growing coffee of their own, often ...

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Image: Julien Harneis from Sana'a, Yemen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-plague-and-decline.mp3 0:06 4 full Mokha: Naming the World's Coffee https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit LBM1948, CC BY-SA 4.0. Even after the trade moved elsewhere, Mokha's name stuck to coffee. The mocha latte - espresso with chocolate and milk - takes its name from the port. So does the Moka pot, the stovetop espresso maker the Italians designed in the 1930s. The Yemeni wild Mocha coffee bean is still ...

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Image: LBM1948 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-naming-the-worlds-coffee.mp3 0:06 5 full Mokha: War and What Remains https://qualla.com/mokha/ Photo credit Gomtu, CC BY 3.0. The modern Yemen war has battered Mokha badly. The Houthis took the city in late 2014 during their southern offensive. An Arab coalition bombed it in July 2015. Pro-Hadi forces recaptured it in February 2017. In 2021, an alleged Houthi attack using ballistic missiles and drones c...

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Image: Gomtu | CC BY 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/q/g/mokha-wp/sfqg-mokha-war-and-what-remains.mp3 0:06 6 full