spilling the beans about Ethiopia and coffee!
“Coffee and love taste best when hot.”
What’s special about Ethiopia and coffee?
The Ethiopian flag - colourful and full of hope
You may know that I love to travel even more than I love coffee - and that’s a lot! I’ve been very fortunate to have travelled, worked and lived all around the world.
One of the most special places I visited - and the place with the best coffee by far - was Ethiopia.
Here are some quick facts about Ethiopia to ponder while you enjoy a cup of fresh brewed coffee.
1. ETHIOPIA IS THE BIRTHPLACE OF COFFEE
Coffee has been a popular beverage here for literally hundreds of years.
Scroll down for the full scoop on how coffee was discovered about 1200 years ago. True! People have been enjoying coffee for at least 12 centuries!
2. ETHIOPIA HAS ITS OWN COFFEE RITUAL
Ethiopians love coffee and drink a ton of it. About half of the coffee grown in Ethiopia is exported - the rest is consumed domestically. This is unlike its neighbours Tanzania and Kenya which also grow excellent coffee but export almost all of it.
Making a cup of coffee in an Ethiopian home is completely different from the Canadian experience. Coffee is a full ritual with a ceremony that is performed daily in many households.
It involves roasting green coffee, grinding it, brewing in a special coffee pot, then drinking 3 rounds of coffee. This ceremony can take 2 hours - pretty different from the grab & go coffee culture of Canada!
Scroll down for a fuller recount of an Ethiopian coffee ceremony.
3. ETHIOPIA IS THE LARGEST AFRICAN PRODUCER - AND CONSUMER - OF COFFEE
Ethiopia is a small country geographically yet is the 5th largest producer of coffee in the world. And only about half of its coffee is exported. Ethiopians keep and drink up the rest!
Ethiopia has a mountainous and diverse geography, much of it ideal for coffee growing.
The country literally runs on coffee. Coffee accounts for about 30% of Ethiopia’s exports and employs about a quarter of the population. Millions of workers across the country depend on coffee to make a living, mostly as farmers and farm workers.
Most Ethiopian coffee is traded on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) which got started in 2008. The ECX has mostly been beneficial for Ethiopian coffee farmers but, like most things, it is not perfect. Perfect Daily Grind has a great article about the ECX: What Is The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange?
4. THE ARK OF THE COVENANT IS IN ETHIOPIA
Contrary to what you saw in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, many people believe that the Ark of the Covenant is in a church in Ethiopia and has been there for about 3,000 years.
The Ark was brought to Ethiopia from Jerusalem by the Queen of Sheba and placed for safekeeping in one of Ethiopia’s many churches. (You did know that Ethiopia is predominantly Christian, right? The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has been around since the 4th or 5th century!) The Ark is said to be kept in The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum. Though every Ethiopian church has a replica in its inner sanctum and only the guardian of the ark knows for sure - no-one else is permitted to even look at it.
5. ADDIS ABABA IS FULL OF ITALIAN-STYLE ESPRESSO BARS
I was surprised when I visited Ethiopia to find many Italian-style espresso bars in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Why Italian-style cafes?
Ethiopia is the only African country that was not colonized in the 1800s and 1900s. However, it was occupied by the Italians from 1936-1941 which brought a large number of Italians to Ethiopia and many of them stayed after the occupation ended.
When I visited, Addis Ababa’s espresso bars had wonderful cappuccinos and pastries, plus delicious fruit juices. Fresh squeezed from local fruits, so enjoyable when sitting on a patio, watching the hustle and bustle of the city.
6. BONUS FUN FACT: Ethiopian beans are in a LOT of Sparkplug Coffees!
I love Ethiopian coffee beans and they are included in many of our blends including Kick Start medium roast, Globetrotter dark roast espresso, and, most notably, Road Trip city roast.
Road Trip is our most delicate coffee with hints of blueberry, jasmine and raisin from those gorgeous Ethiopian beans.
Recommended for: black coffee, Aeropress, pour over, Chemex, cold brew, drip / filter coffee.
One of the many Ethiopian homes where I was invited to share a cup or 3 of coffee.
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
Ethiopian Coffee is never consumed alone. Every gathering, from a morning meeting to a birthday celebration, is important and requires buna!
The famed and elaborate Ethiopian coffee ceremony can take more than an hour to prepare and even longer to drink. This is how it typically goes:
Ignite incense - preferably frankincense - on hot coals. Watch the conversation take off as the sweet aroma fills the room!
Wash green coffee beans then roast them on a mitad - a metal pan over the same coals. After roasting, take the mitad to guests and let them inhale its aroma. Smells are an important part of the enjoyment, as you can tell!
Grind the beans with a mortar and pestle then boil them in a jebena - a traditional long-necked clay pot made for preparing coffee in. Let the beans steep!
Gather coffee cups on the rekebot - the coffee platter. Ethiopian coffee cups are small and have no handles, similar to a Chinese tea cup. Put a filter in the spout of the jebena. Pour the first cup, but don’t drink it! This pour clears the spout of any residual coffee grounds.
Let the drinking begin! Most Ethiopians add sugar to their coffee. Milk is a very uncommon addition. Three rounds of coffee are consumed. The first round is called abol, the second is tona, and the third and final cup baraka. Enjoy some snacks and conversation with your coffee!
I was so fortunate to be included in this ceremony many times during my time in Ethiopia. Whether I was a guest in a Gondar household or a restaurant’s patron in Lalibela, the ceremony was lovely and the coffee delicious!
Want to know more about Ethiopian coffee ceremony? This blog post by the Spruce Eats is pretty good: How to Perform an Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
MOKARAR Best Ethiopian Coffee: a coffee roaster I visited in Addis Ababa - my photos are all terrible quality but the memories are wonderful!
How Coffee Was Discovered
Kaldi, a tired 8th-century shepherd from Kaffa (then part of the kingdom of Abyssinia, now in southwest Ethiopia) made an unusual discovery that would go on to change the world. As Kaldi led his goats through a highland monastery, he noticed that their behavior began to rapidly change. After a few minutes of grazing, his once passive flock started to jump around and bleat loudly. Kaldi investigated the nearby plants, quickly locating the source of their newfound excitement.
Bright red berries.
Trying some of the berries for himself, Kaldi immediately felt restored and energized. He filled his pockets with these “heaven-sent” berries and ran to the nearby monastery to share his amazing discovery, but the monks there did not see them as heavenly. Calling Kaldi’s berries “the devil’s work”, the monks threw them into a roaring fire. Then the smell came.
The tantalizing aroma was enough to make almost every monk immediately reconsider their decision. After quickly removing the berries from the fire and crushing them, the monks decided to cover the beans with water to preserve their quality. As the monks noticed the sharp and uplifting nature of the dark liquid they had just inadvertently created, they vowed to consume the beverage multiple times a day to aid them in prayer and concentration.
And this was the discovery of coffee.
While the details of Kaldi, his goats, and the monks may have been embellished over the years, anthropological and other research confirm that coffee did originate in Ethiopia!