While the port of Mocha fiercely protected the secret of coffee during the 15th to 18th century AD, the Indian monk Bada Budan was not the only person to try to break the monopoly and smuggle beans out of the country. In 1616, the Dutch merchant Pieter van der Broecke established trade relations in Mocha, acting on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. He then used his reputable position to secretly obtain live coffee plants. While this event isn’t recorded in his journals — for obvious reasons! — he probably bribed local workers or officials to get the plants. After smuggling them onto his ship, he set sail for the Netherlands. The coffee plants were brought back to Amsterdam and cultivated in the Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden) of Amsterdam. Ironically, this act of “biopiracy” was a short-term failure, as it turned out that coffee didn’t grow well in the cold Dutch climate!
