There is always good news for Ethiopia’s coffee. Coffee has at least two aspects to its story. The first is economic. The good news is that Ethiopia’s coffee export to the global market has reached a new high of more than 1 billion USD and this is considered record breaking revenue. China is the biggest importer of Ethiopian coffee and the volume of its imports has grown by more 196 percent. We can perhaps add by saying that coffee is also Ethiopia’s economic life saver, particularly at this time when the foreign currency crunch is threatening the import sector with a potential freeze.
The cultural aspect of Ethiopian coffee on the other hand is more interesting as it has many ramifications. Coffee in Ethiopia is a big source of enjoyment at the personal level. There is hardly any family in Ethiopia that leaves home without the morning cup of coffee taken in its natural form: deep black, sugarless (the price of sugar is catching up with the price of coffee or it is altogether unavailable in the market!), and in three rounds in traditional households. The average Ethiopians take their coffee with a piece of bread, roasted beans, home-made flat bread known as kitta which is the equivalent of the Indian chapatti. More affluent families may take their coffee with scrambled eggs, or porridge or with the ubiquitous plain injera soaked in meat sauce.
Ethiopian coffee culture is that most households sit long hours attending three rounds of servings that may take more than two hours to complete. These are occasions for the morning gossip, political news and marriage announcements, divorces or household scandals in the villages. Ethiopians in urban areas cannot enjoy such pastimes these days as they are pressed by the rising cost of living to go out in search of work of any kind in order to make ends meet. Coffee does not leave you even after you leave home for work. It follows you at the workplace as many office workers believe that coffee is a real energy booster and that is true although the cost of a cup of coffee is growing every time.
The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is a laborious process and an important point of social connection and exchange of information. “The coffee ceremony lasts for about 2 to 3 hours. It’s common for families, especially those in traditional homes, to enjoy 2-3 of these ceremonies per day. Children participate in serving the coffee to the elders and most of the time, guests are invited.” Coffee is also the most precious drink served to guests you love and value very much. It is not drunk alone. In some local culture coffee is drunk with butter while in others it is served with honey. Many coffee drinkers in the rural Ethiopia prefer to drink it plain or with salt mixed in it. Some kind of food is also served together with coffee during coffee ceremonies. This may be popcorns, roasted beans, traditional bread or a piece of injera.
“The ceremony is typically performed by the woman of the household and is considered an honor. The coffee is brewed by first roasting the green coffee beans over an open flame in a pan. This is followed by the grinding of the beans, traditionally in a wooden mortar and pestle.” Modern households increasingly use electric coffee roasters and grinders and boil the coffee in the Western style.
Coffee in Ethiopia is served at many joints outside homes. The first are the ever present “Buna Tetu” (Come and Drink Coffee) joints that are mushrooming in every quarter and street bend in the towns and even in the outskirts of Addis. Buna Tetu is both a source of income for the coffee brewers, mostly pretty young girls, and the landlords and landladies who earns considerable income by renting out the coffee shades, mostly makeshift plastic shelters with half a dozen plastic chairs and benches.
The Buna Tetu joints have become so popular and also income generating, and unemployed girls are prone to serve at one of them. These are hard times and any available job is instantly occupied including at the Buna Tetu joints where black coffee with sugar or without, is made brighter when taken in the company of the smiles and chats of pretty girls.
Ordinary bars also serve coffee in the modern way with coffee machines and served with sugar and even a piece of lemon. Bars are also selling plenty of beer to people whose incomes allow them to take the popular drink at any time of the day. There are also many elderly people who spend most of their days at these places, sipping beer and taking a cup or two cup of coffee in order to tame the negative effect of beer when they consume it in great quantity.
It may be popular myth or scientific truth but many beer drinkers would tell you that coffee has a positive effect on your liver when it is under pressure from the glass after glass of beer. The bad news is that both the price of a cup of coffee and a glass of beer are growing parallel to one another. A big glass of draft beer costs you 30 birr these days while the price of a cup of coffee ranges from 10 to 15 or 20 birr or more.
I was recently surprised by a modern coffee joint named “Chaka Buna” (Forest coffee) near the Addis Ababa stadium where a cup of coffee cost is said to cost 25 birr. I did not have the heart to try the coffee and when I gathered enough courage to pay the price, there was hardly any place in the small room and I decided to visit it some other day. Those who tried the coffee told me that it must be from another planet. No, it is from this planet and from this country.
This is not a coffee affordable to the majority of the coffee lovers who happen to be low on spending power. Many people in the low income bracket may choose to spend the same amount of money to have a “lunch” at a wayside eatery where they serve you a small round injera thinner than paper that may be taken away by the wind any minute so that you have to swallow it as soon as possible.
In the old days there were a few elite coffee houses as there were a few elite restaurants. Tomoca, on Churchill Street used to dominate the elite coffee market but nowadays there are newcomers such as Kaldis and other less known ones. By the way Kaldis Coffee owes its name to the legendary goat herder who spotted the mysterious shrubs that sent his goat jumping up and down in the fields.
When I tested Tomoca coffee for the first time many decades ago, I had a hard time finishing a single cup due to the strong brew. Compared with the quality of coffee we are having these days, a cup of Tomoca can be three times blacker, thicker and stronger that its contemporary rivals. Particularly for people like me who are raised on light coffee brewed at home and boiled three times at a row. Kaldis too is becoming increasingly popular as it is opening shops at critical junctions in Addis and in the surrounding small towns like Bishoftu.
Tomoca is not only a chain coffee shop. It is a bigger business involving coffee exporting activities. According to one source, “Tomoca is a member of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), and it exports its coffee to Sweden, Germany, USA, Japan and other countries. The company is led by Wondwossen Meshesha, the operations manager. Tomoca has six branches in Addis Ababa and opened its first international branch in Tokyo, Japan, in 2015.”
On the other hand, Kaldis coffee was established in 2005, Kaldi’s operates more than two dozen coffee shops in the capital Addis Ababa and other cities in Ethiopia. Founder and CEO Tseday Asrat.
The most visible change in the local coffee market is that coffee is in short supply; the quality of coffee is poor while the price is going up. Many people who enjoyed quality coffee when the commodity was not as precious as gold, as it is nowadays complain by saying that there is no good-quality coffee these days as the good one is destined for export. There is a great deal of truth in this statement but even if high quality coffee were available in the local market no one could buy them because its price would be beyond the economic capacities of the average households. Many people, including dedicated coffee lovers, are happy that Ethiopian coffee is fetching higher prices in the export market because most of them are patriotic at heart. No doubt that the interest of the country is grater indeed than the interest of the coffee consumer.
A foreign blogger once wrote the following lines about Ethiopian coffee and coffee drinking and buying in Addis Ababa. “If you drink coffee, you probably already know that Ethiopian coffee is perhaps the best in the world. So one of the best activities to do in Addis Ababa is to search out the best coffee shops in the best coffee country in the world. Not only will you want to drink as many cups of the goodness as possible while in Ethiopia, but it’s also a must to purchase coffee beans in Addis Ababa to bring back wherever you may be going.”
Ethiopian coffee has many fascinating stories from its birth in the forests of Kaffa to its serving in the best coffee shop in the Ethiopian capital. Many of its stories are told by its growers, buyers, exporters, drinkers and even doctors who often tell us that coffee is one of the best and healthiest beverages in the world that is available both to the poor and the privileged, albeit in different forms, qualities and prices. It however remains the same story told in the Ethiopian highlands from the time Kaldis spotted it for the first time to the time coffee became a precious item in global trade fetching billions and serving as income generator to millions of growers and sellers. The story of coffee is bound to keep on growing and assuming greater importance despite the ups and downs in the market that do not diminish the universal love and affection coffee enjoys among hundreds millions of drinkers around the world.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald 21 May 2022
