Recipe - Traditional Ethiopian Coffee

Imagine walking down a dirt road lined with various fences. Some made of corrugated tin, others made of small tree trunks and still others made of a hodge-podge of both. Behind the fences you can hear a deep rhythmic thud, thud, thud, and from some wafts the scent of roasting coffee and incense. Finally you reach your co-workers gate, where you’ve been invited for coffee.

You’re invited inside and given the nicest chair in which to sit. Also sitting in the small common room are a few other people, perhaps a brother, sister, children, neighbors, other co-workers. Incense smokes over burning charcoal. Your co-worker moves to the corner of the room and sits on a small wooden stool behind a small charcoal stove and a tray covered with small, handle less tea cups called Cini (see-knee). Scattered around her on the floor is freshly cut green grass, for decoration.

While small-talk ensues your coworker is gently rinsing a handful of raw, pale green, coffee beans. She puts the rinsed coffee beans onto a gently curved circular roasting pan and holds it over the glowing charcoal in her stove. She pushes the coffee beans around the roasting pan until they are dark brown, with small bits of pale green still visible. “The problem with American coffee,” she says to you “is that it is burned during roasting. To make it sweet, it must look like this.”



A Traditional Coffee Ceremony Set Up



She puts the roasted beans into a tall, deep, wooden mortar and begins to pound the beans with a long metal pestle, “thud, thud, thud”, until it is almost a fine powder. She spoons the grounds, tea spoon by tea spoon, into a ceramic jug, called a buna jebena, full of boiling water and places the jug back over the coals. She leaves it there for some time while she chats. Some time later she pours a bit into a cini, examines it, and pours it back into the jebena. “It isn’t ready. The coffee must rest at the bottom and the coffee must be dark.” She says to you.

When the coffee is perfectly brewed she puts a few teaspoons of sugar into the cinies, pours the coffee over it, and serves each guest, one-by-one. The coffee is sipped piping hot. The room remains quiet as everyone enjoys the brew. Your co-worker pours more water into the jebena and sets it back on the coals.

Your co-worker collects the empty cups and refills them. The coffee is a little lighter this time, not quite so strong. Again, water is added to the jebena and is set to boil. Empty cups are collected and the third and final brew is served.  You’ve just partaken in a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. It was the best coffee you’ve ever had, and coffee back home will never again satisfy, at least not completely.



While it’s a lot of fun to do an authentic coffee ceremony with the jebena and everything, I know for most people back home it probably isn’t very likely to happen with the equipment available. So, for the sake of modern convenience I’ll tell you how to brew Ethiopian style coffee at home.



Clockwise from top - Buna jebena, smoking insence on coal, two cini, sugar pot.



You’ll need:

A small frying pan

A coffee grinder or deep mortar and pestle

A tea pot

As many small tea cups as you need to serve yourself and/or your guests

1 Cup of raw coffee beans

7 Cups of water

1 tsp cloves (optional)

¼ tsp cinnamon (optional)

Give the coffee beans a good rinse and dry them off. Heat up the frying pan and throw them thar coffee beans on. Roast them until they are golden brown. NOT BURNT! NOT BLACK! Just golden brown. It’s okay if you see tiny specks of green still. I’m told that’s part of what makes Ethiopian coffee so good. Let the roasted beans cool. Either pound or grind the beans until they are as fine as you can get them. If you want to add the cloves and cinnamon add them to grinder or mortar with the beans to grind them together. Boil the water in the tea pot, add the coffee and steep it at a low simmer until the grounds sink to the bottom (about 5 minutes). You can check to see if the grounds are settled by pouring a bit of the coffee into a tea cup. If there are a lot of grounds in it, let it simmer until there is less. It’s okay to have a few grounds. There is always a small layer of coffee sediment in the bottom of cini. Pour the coffee and serve with sugar or black if you prefer.

Mmmmm……so good!

If you didn’t catch my last blog, it’s all about the origin of coffee, so check it out if you’re interested.

The Birth of Coffee - The Story of Kaldi

As you may well know, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. Here is the story of how that was supposed to have happened.

Once upon a time in Ethiopia there was a goatherd named Kaldi. He began to notice that when his goats ate the little red berries from a certain bush they’d go all spastic and crazy. Like any person would have done, he tried them himself and he felt GREAT! He took some of the berries home to his wife who popped some in her mouth as well. She liked the affects so much that she made up her mind that the berries were a gift from god. She promptly took the heaven-sent goodies to the monks at the monastery.

A Caffeinated Kaldi dancing with his goats.

The monks were skeptical and decided the berries were actually a gift from the devil, duh! However, over time the monks were trying to figure out how to stay awake and alert for prayers through the night and they decided that maybe those berries really were a gift from god and they ate them. Sure enough, praying through the night was no longer a problem. The berries tasted like crap though, so the monks tried to figure out how to prepare them so they’d taste better. They tried roasting them and then eating them. They still tasted bad, but the aroma of the roasting was awesome, so they kept on with it. Then they tried roasting them and boiling them and BINGO! Coffee was born! When the Arabs came to visit the Ethiopians were like, “Dudes, you gotta try this delicious drink we have here.” The Arabs liked it too, so they took some coffee home with them and marketed it. Anyway, now the whole world has coffee thanks to Kaldi and his caffeinated goats.

In the very beginning, coffee was traditionally served with salt, and sometimes even butter. In some places in Ethiopia it is still prepared this way, but sugar is much more common these days.

Coffee bush berries growing on my compound

The coffee ceremony is a tradition that continues and has changed very little over years. You can always tell when someone is having a coffee ceremony because you can smell the roasting coffee as you pass by on the street.  One of my favorite things about walking in the evening is the smell of all of the neighbors roasting their beans mixed with the incense they burn throughout the ceremony. I was never a fan of coffee before I moved here, but there is nothing  more satisfying than sitting and chatting with friends in a room filled with the scent of incense and roasted coffee, sipping at a hot little cup of traitionally prepared coffee.

Next time on Birdy Birds Bloggy Blog: The ins and outs of a traditional coffee ceremony and how to make your own traditional Ethiopian coffee.