Yemen Natural - Mocha Mattari

Clean, delicate, blueberry, clove, white grape, chocolate Nesquik

TOP LOT

Bag Weight	32 KG BAG
Harvest Season	2025/26
Status	Spot
Lot Number	P614899-3

Alameda, CA: Out of Stock Bag(s)

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About This Coffee

This natural-processed lot comes to us via Pearl of Tehama, a Yemeni exporter founded in 2015 by Fatoum Muslot, as an extension of her father Ali Hiba Muslot’s long-running coffee business. As one of Yemen’s first female coffee exporters, Fatoum has continued her family’s work while building stronger market access for farmers and supporting quality-focused production. This lot is consists of Yemeni heirloom cultivars, grown in Bani Matar in the Sana’a governorate at elevations of 2000 to 2400 meters on mountainous terraces. Sourced from 98 smallholder farmers who hand-pick ripe cherries and dry their harvest on rooftops and raised beds. For these producers, coffee accounts for an estimated 70 to 80 percent of household income, making quality-focused export an essential part of the community’s economy.

Country of Origin	Yemen
Region	Bani Matter, Sana’a
Producer Type	Small Holder Farmers
Farm Name	Various producers
Processing	Natural/Dry Processed
Processing Description	Sun-dried on rooftops and raised beds
Growing Altitude	2000m - 2400m

Harvest Season	2025/26
Bag Weight	32 KG BAG
Bag Type	Grain Pro / Ecotact
Plant Species	Arabica
Variety	Yemeni Heirloom

History of Coffee in Yemen

We know that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee as a plant, but if you want to talk about the first intensification of commercial cultivation and exportation of coffee, we are talking about Yemen. The birthplace of coffee is Ethiopia, and the birthplace of the coffee industry is almost certainly Yemen. No place on earth has been cultivating coffee for international trade at scale as long as Yemen. For hundreds of years Yemen maintained a monopoly on growing and exporting green coffee. While coffee drinking expanded across the globe, coffee growing did not until the 17th century, and that only happened with assistance from a generation of determined smugglers and adventurers.

Growing Coffee in Yemen

Yemen coffee is grown on mountainsides so steep that farms must be terraced, creating steps on which coffee can be planted, a practice now hundreds of years old. In recent years, however, the challenge for coffee farmers has been accessing international markets due to conflicts within the country. It is extremely difficult to export coffee from Yemen under current conditions, which contributes to the prices being admittedly very high. But the 90,000 Yemen coffee farmers are known to be as resilient as their coffee (which has been studied by World Coffee Research for its hardiness). For most farmers, the practices around producing coffee have not changed for generations. Virtually all Yemen coffee is naturally processed, drying on mats or raised beds or rooftops, and is sometimes called the “mother of all natural processed coffee.”