"St. ALi derives its name from Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili, a fourteenth-century Sufi cleric from the mystical Sufism branch of Islam. Al-Shadhili spent time in the court of the sultanate in Southern Ethiopia, where he learned of a strange berry that promoted wakefulness, which he took back with him to Yemen. As Yemen is generally recognised to have introduced coffee to the rest of the world, he is now considered to be the patron saint of coffee."

—Salvatore Malatesta