Coffees are known in commerce both by geographical and special names. The principal coffee-producing countries are Brazil, the Dutch East Indies, Abyssinia, Arabia, the Central American States, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, the East Indian Islands, and Porto Rico and Cuba. On the continent of North America coffee is produced only in Mexico. In the countries named there are many varieties, with local appellations and for which claims of different kinds of quality are strenuously made. All coffees have a common property in this, that they contain caffein as an active stimulating agent and all of them develop, aroma and flavor by roasting. The expert, by inspection of the beans, roasted or unroasted, and especially the unroasted, is usually able to distinguish the origin of the coffee. The expert tasters, also, have so trained their olfactory and gustatory nerves that they are able, on brewing coffee in a definite manner, to distinguish by the flavor, with more or less certainty, its origin. The highly trained expert can even distinguish the different components of a blend by this method, which is known as "testing the coffee in the cup."

Among the principal kinds of coffee which are most generally known may be mentioned the following: Mocha, grown in the Yemen district of Arabia; Java, grown in the Dutch East Indies; not, however, as a rule upon the Island of Java. It is held by the Bureau of Chemistry that the term "Java" should be confined in its use not to the coffees produced in the Dutch East Indies, but only to those produced upon the Island of Java. Brazilian coffees are those chiefly consumed in the United States, and are known and divided in general into two large classes, named from the ports of export, viz., Santos and Rio.