Their cup overflows: Why future is bright for Saudi coffee growers

Gibran al-Maliki walks through clouds and into the tree-lined stone terraces hugging the mountainside – treading the same path his family has walked for generations.

He stops to bend down and gently squeeze a sapling’s green-red cherry between his fingers. Ripening too fast, he says.

“Seven centuries and the farming process is still the same,” he smiles, “and the joy is still the same.”

Here in the remote villages dotting the mountains of the Saudi-Yemeni border, coffee has been many things over the centuries: a symbol of hospitality, a community uniter, a means of celebrating and peacemaking, and a currency.

Now, an ambitious new plan by the Saudi government envisions yet another role for this ancestral crop: a national industry aiming to fill your next morning cup.

Amid government pitches coffee with the world. Yet locals say tradition, as much as market economics, will determine Saudi coffee’s future success.