Native Ground Coffee brings O'odham history and culture to the mainstream coffee world. Thousands of years before the Spanish came to the Americas, our O'odham people were drinking caffeinated drinks derived from the cacao tree. Our ancestors traded with the tribes from Mesoamerica, where the coca tree is indigenous. The "black drink" as it was called, was used for special occasions and medicinal purposes. Once the coffee plant was introduced to the Americas in the 17th century, it didn't take long until the indigenous peoples grew, and traded the coffee beans throughout the Western hemisphere, and eventually the world.