Mocha

The port of Mocha was well-located for ships traveling between the Red and Arabian Seas to stop there. It rose to prominence during the first period of Ot-toman rule in Yemen, thanks to coffee trade. Mocha’s flourishing continued until the eighteenth century when the coffee bean started to be cultivated in Southeast Asia. The port of Mocha was first visited by members of the VOC in 1616, but it took several years before permission to trade in the port and open a branch there was granted. In this image you see the port as Carsten Niebuhr saw it during his travels in the 1760s, when it was beginning to decline.

Carsten Niebuhr, Legging der Stad en Haven Mochha, Amsterdam 1776 (COLLBN Port 174 N 42)