The New Student's Reference Work/Mocha

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Mo′cha. This village lies 130 miles west-northwest of the British port of Aden, in Yemen, Arabia. It is near the site of a large, ancient city (Musa), but it came into importance through the traffic in coffee. No coffee is or was grown near Mocha, but the place for a time was an important market for this product. In 1709 it had 10,000 inhabitants, but in 1806 only 5,000. Now it has dwindled to a mere village, having surrendered most of its commerce to Aden. But its name is still given to a kind of coffee.