Wayne Thiebaud1920 -
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A raging tempest, Tunisian pirates and
a month of windless doldrums didn't
deter Frenchman Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu
from bringing a single coffee plant from the
garden of Louis XIV to the island
of Martinique in 1723. The tree thrived in its
new Caribbean setting and soon spread.
The vast majority of the coffee trees in
the Americas today are
descendants of that one plant
