It was said that a single seed that was planted in the Americas by King Louis XIV of France had managed to spread and transported safely to Martinique, not only thriving but had been credited with the spread of over 18 million coffee trees on the island for the next 50 years. This tiny seedling not only made its way through all of nature’s hazards, but also came to be the parent of all coffee trees throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America. While the French were not particularly willing to share their coffee franchise, missionaries, travelers, traders and colonists continued to carry the coffee seeds to new lands, and thus coffee trees began to spread worldwide. Plantations developed throughout various tropical forests and on rugged mountain high and low lands. While some evidently diminished, many expanded and multiplied throughout the nations especially as many had become established on coffee economies, it was highly important to the lives of families that the crops flourished. By the end of the 18th century, coffee had become one of the world’s most profitable export crops, and next to crude oil, coffee is the most sought out commodity in the world.