Mocha, Yemen

Mocha
Mocha Location in Yemen
Coordinates:
Country	Yemen
Governorate	Taiz Governorate
	16,794
Time zone	Yemen Standard Time (UTC+3)

Mocha or Mokha (Arabic: المخا‎‎ al-Mukhā  Yemeni pronunciation: [elˈmoχæ]) is a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. Until Aden and Hodeida eclipsed it in the 19th century, Mocha was the principal port for Yemen's capital Sana'a.

Overview

Mocha is famous for being the major marketplace for coffee from the 15th century until the early 18th century. Even after other sources of coffee were found, Mocha beans (also called Sanani or Mocha Sanani beans, meaning from Sana'a) continued to be prized for their distinctive flavor—and remain so even today.

European factories at Mocha in the late 17th century

According to the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Jerónimo Lobo, who sailed the Red Sea in 1625, Mocha was "formerly of limited reputation and trade" but since "the Turkish assumption of power throughout Arabia, it has become the major city of the territory under Turkish domination, even though it is not the Pasha's place of residence, which is two days' journey inland in the city of Sana'a." Lobo adds that its importance as a port was also due to the Ottoman law that required all ships entering the Red Sea to put in at Mocha and pay duty on their cargoes.

Passing through Mocha in 1752 and 1756, Remedius Prutky found that it boasted a "lodging-house of the Prophet Muhammad, which was like a huge tenement block laid out in many hundred separate cells where accommodation was rented to all strangers without discrimination of race or religion." He also found a number of European ships in the harbor: three French, four English, two Dutch, and one Portuguese.

English, Dutch, French and Danish East India companies maintained factories at Mocha, which remained a major emporium and coffee exporting port until the early 19th century. In August 1800 Phoenix visited. William Moffat, her captain, took the opportunity to prepare a chart of the mouth of the Red Sea.

In December 1820, HMS Topaze and ships and troops belonging to the British East India Company attacked the North and South Forts, destroying them. The action was in pursuit of British demands on the government of the city. However, by that time, Mocha's trade in its country's precious commodity of coffee grains (Coffea arabica) had already been supplanted by Ethiopia who was the principal trader of this commodity to North Africa and which sold for a third of the price of the same coffee imported from Arabia. The destruction of the city was still prominent as late as 1909, when German explorer and photographer, Hermann Burchardt, wrote of the city Mocha as he saw it: “This card will reach you from one of the most godforsaken little places in Asia. It exceeds all my expectations, with regard to the destruction. It looks like a city entirely destroyed by earthquakes, etc.”

Villa of the Turkish governor, late 19th century

General view of Mocha, early 20th century

Diplomat Edmund Roberts visited Mocha in the 1830s. He noted that Turkish "rebels" possessed Mocha. The Turks took it over after they left Egypt while being disgruntled with the rule of Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The "rebels" consisted of a leader, Turkie ben al Mas, and people from throughout Arabia.

Mocha was among the population centers in southern Yemen taken over by the Houthis during their military offensive in March 2015.

At present, Mocha is no longer utilized as a major trade route and the current local economy is largely based upon fishing and small amounts of tourism. The village of Mocha was officially relocated 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west along the Red Sea shore to accommodate the building and demolition of several coastal highways.

Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh).

Climate data for Mocha
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	31.2 (88.2)	31.5 (88.7)	33.4 (92.1)	35.4 (95.7)	37.6 (99.7)	38.8 (101.8)	39.5 (103.1)	38.9 (102)	37.6 (99.7)	35.7 (96.3)	33.2 (91.8)	31.4 (88.5)	35.35 (95.63)
Daily mean °C (°F)	26.7 (80.1)	27.1 (80.8)	28.8 (83.8)	30.6 (87.1)	32.7 (90.9)	34 (93)	34.6 (94.3)	34 (93)	33 (91)	31 (88)	28.9 (84)	27.2 (81)	30.72 (87.25)
Average low °C (°F)	22.3 (72.1)	22.7 (72.9)	24.2 (75.6)	25.9 (78.6)	27.8 (82)	29.2 (84.6)	29.7 (85.5)	29.1 (84.4)	28.4 (83.1)	26.3 (79.3)	24 (75)	23 (73)	26.05 (78.84)
Average precipitation mm (inches)	5 (0.2)	2 (0.08)	4 (0.16)	4 (0.16)	2 (0.08)	1 (0.04)	8 (0.31)	14 (0.55)	22 (0.87)	6 (0.24)	2 (0.08)	5 (0.2)	75 (2.97)
Source: Climate-Data.org, altitude: 3m

Sister cities

• Tadjoura, Djibouti

See also

• Mocha coffee bean
• Caffè mocha

Further reading

Published in the 19th century

Published in the 20th century

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