The spread of coffee over the world has a rich history in which the Netherlands has played a fairly substantial role. Yemen, where coffee was grown after the spread from Kaffa, tried to stop the spread of coffee by banning the export of fertile coffee. Dutch traders avoided this ban in 1616 by shipping away complete coffee plants from Mocha. The plants that were taken were then spread to Malaba in India where the first Dutch coffee farms were founded. In 1699 coffee plants were taken to Batavia, the former capital of current Indonesia, to further grow the production of coffee. After several years the Dutch had become the largest supplier of coffee of Europe.