The Dutch Coffee Trade: From Mocha to Amsterdam

After exploring cocoa, beer, and tulips, we turn to another brew that transformed the Dutch Republic: coffee. In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) smuggled coffee plants from the Yemeni port of Mocha, breaking the Arab monopoly. By 1700, Amsterdam was Europe's coffee hub, with plantations in Java, Ceylon, and Suriname. But the trade came at a cost: forced labor, colonial extraction, and environmental change. Lucas and Luna trace the journey from Sufi monks in Yemen to Amsterdam's first coffeehouses, where merchants and radicals sipped the dark brew that fueled the Enlightenment. Along the way, they meet Pieter van den Broecke, the Dutch merchant who brought the first coffee to Europe; the VOC governor-general who commissioned the plant theft; and the enslaved workers who made the plantations profitable. They also confront a paradox: the same republic that championed free trade built its wealth on coercion.

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