In Yemen's highlands, hope persists where coffee grows

Sanaa: The sun had just started to crest the rugged hills of Haraz in western Yemen when I met Ahmad Ali Nassim, a 50-year-old coffee farmer whose hands were already stained with sap from his morning's work.

We stood on a narrow trail meandering between stone-bordered terraces. The air was fresh and brisk with a faint scent from wild herbs and ripening coffee cherries.

"This tree," he said, patting a branch heavy with red fruit, "has seen both war and storm, just like us."

As early as six centuries ago, the Haraz highlands were already renowned as a cradle of Yemen's traditional coffee.

With their lofty elevation, singular rocky soil, and humid climate, the mountains offer a convergence of conditions so particular that they seemed almost fated for the cultivation of exceptional coffee.

"Every harvest was spoken for," Nassim recalled. "All we had to do was to keep the trees alive and the irrigation systems up and running."

But all of that changed with the outbreak of Yemen's civil war in 2014.

As the conflict drags on, some farmers are forced to flee their land in search of safety. The country's coffee industry has suffered a devastating blow as production grinds to a near standstill, and once-thriving plantations are overtaken by qat, a tobacco-like stimulant plant.

Even amid the chaos of war and displacement, the locals never forgot the coffee trees they had planted with their own hands. "The coffee trees on the mountains -- that's where home is," Nassim told me.

Since 2020, northern Yemen has been stabilizing, and farmers from the Haraz highlands have made their way back home.

Returning to their once-familiar coffee groves, they've pulled out the qat bushes and planted new coffee saplings.

Misfortunes and hardships aside, life has to move forward. "As long as the coffee trees are alive, there's hope for us," Nassim said, his eyes catching the light as he looked out at the coffee cherries.

"This land is finding its way back," he murmured. "Just like people drink coffee to start their day, for us growers, these coffee trees mark the beginning of a new chapter in our lives."

For Yemenis, coffee also serves as a precise barometer of their everyday rhythm. Amid the swelling tide of beans traded by Nassim and his fellow farmers, the queues snaking outside neighborhood cafes are whispering tales of renewal -- a potent sign of a society finding its footing once more.

At a small exhibition showcasing local products in the Old City of Sanaa, capital of Yemen, I encountered Wafa Abdullah, a young exhibition organizer who likened coffee to Yemen's resilience.

"People talk about oil as black gold," she said. "But our coffee is just as valuable. It connects us to others and the world, and it sustains families on the land."

In the final days of my visit, reports emerged of renewed clashes between Houthi forces and government troops.

I turned to Nassim and asked whether, if the violence intensified, he would flee once again.

He led me over to a young coffee seedling he had planted just two seasons before. 

Amidst the cracked, arid earth, the sapling stood lush and vigorous.

"Like this coffee tree," he said softly, "I won't leave this time. This land is our roots."