No matter where European colonialists went, one thing was for sure, they brought coffee.
Interestingly, Catholic missionaries and religious preachers were influential in the spread of coffee as well.
Given their natural interest in botany, Christian monks were intrigued by the plant, studying and nurturing it in their gardens.
France, Europe's dominant supplier of coffee took the plant from Martinique to modern day Haiti, leading to its rapid spread all throughout the French Antilles.
Coffee production had emerged into a number of other countries as well.
The Spanish brought it to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, and Columbia.
They even spread it as far west as the Philippines.
Not to be outdone, the Portuguese introduced coffee to their colony, Brazil.
Brazil would later become the world's largest coffee producer.
By 1730, the British introduced it to Jamaica, where the world renown Blue Mountain beans are still grown.
By the early 1800's, the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra, both Dutch colonies, were the main exporters of coffee to Europe.
India and Ceylon tried to compete against the Dutch, but the British colonies didn't make a dent against the Dutch empire.
As fate would have it, the Dutch plantations were hit with a disease that swept through the coffee fields of Asia, destroying the crop and giving Brazil the chance to take the reigns as the world's largest coffee producer; a status the country still holds today.
The collapse of the mighty Dutch coffee empire wasn't caused by a mighty army or a labor revolt.
It was a simple crop disease, paving the way for a new leader.