Jean de la Roque

Jean de la Roque (1661 – December 8, 1745) was a French traveller and journalist born in Marseille. Jean de la Roque was the author of Voyage en Syrie et au mont Liban (1722), a book about his experiences in the Levant, which he visited in 1689 for the first time. This work describes the customs of the various regional tribes, and provides information on the ruins at Baalbek. In 1708-10 and 1711-13 he took part on two expeditions to the Arabian peninsula, and afterwards published his Arabian experiences in Voyage dans l’Arabie heureuse (1716). In this tract he gives a detailed account of coffee plantations and the coffee trade in Yemen.