Ethiopia, the home of coffee

Éloi Ficquet

In Ethiopia, coffee is a central part of everyday life. Inexpensive and served everywhere, on any occasion, it is a powerful factor promoting conviviality and social relations. In the capital, Addis Ababa, and every other city in the country, you can drink coffee in the street, on the pavement, sitting on a little stool and catching up on neighbourhood news. You can also find it in luxury international hotels and airports, where the preparation ritual is performed on a little stage. 

Elegance in gestures, clothes and utensils is also de rigueur in every household when this drink is prepared on feast days. The mistress of the house can show off her skills, while young women get an opportunity to be noticed. The streets of towns and villages are filled with the fragrant fumes of home-roasted coffee, mingled with the scent of burning incense. Coffee is so irresistible that it is said to attract invisible genies, who are appeased by the purifying properties of the incense. Fresh herbs and flowers are scattered on the ground as a sign of welcome. Relatives, friends and neighbours drop by, bringing sachets of sugar or spices to be used in the brew, along with snacks of toasted seeds and salted popcorn. 

The first act in the ceremony involves each guest wafting the smoke from the roasted beans towards their nostrils with a little movement of the hand. The so-called djebena terracotta cafetière, with its rounded belly and long neck, is filled with water and placed on the fire. Meanwhile, the beans are ground in a mortar. The grounds are then collected in the palm of the hand, poured into the cafetière and brought back to the boil for a few moments. In the highlands of Ethiopia, at an altitude of 2,500 metres, water boils at 91 °C, the ideal temperature for preserving all the aromas. 

Once ready, the black brew is poured from a height, without splashing, into little handleless cups with flared rims, set out on a low table specially designed for the purpose. A first service is performed, starting with the oldest and most respected guests. Sugar may be added to enhance the taste, or a pinch of salt, especially in rural districts where sugar is scarce and expensive. Dipping a sprig of the aromatic plant tenadam (literally “Adam's health”) is also highly appreciated. After this first service water is poured over the grounds at the bottom of the cafetière and reheated for a second service. Finally, after a few hours, a third service brings the ceremony to a close.

Each of these three successive services is designated by a word borrowed from Arabic – abol, tona and baraka, meaning, respectively, “first”, “second” and “blessing”. These linguistic elements are traces of religious usage. Up until the end of the 19^th century, only Muslims were allowed to drink coffee – it was forbidden for Ethiopian Christians. Back then, Ethiopia did not have the same borders as today, with the Christian kingdom concentrated in the mountains. As the kingdom expanded towards the lower plains, it absorbed territories ruled by Muslims. The aim was to form a protective barrier against European colonial expansionism.

It was in this context that the modern nation of Ethiopia was formed. Coffee played a double role. On the one hand, political independence had to be consolidated economically by developing exports. The coffee plant grows well in Ethiopia – the land and climate in which it originated. At the same time, on a social level, it was necessary to unite a divided population. By drinking coffee openly, Emperor Menelik, who reigned from 1889 to 1913, encouraged his Christian subjects to do the same, not only to stimulate the domestic market (today, 40 per cent of Ethiopia's coffee production is consumed locally) but also to found a common and peaceful nation.

The coffee ceremony, which has become emblematic of the Ethiopian way of life, has its origins in Sufi Muslim mysticism. Even today, in Sufi prayer circles, coffee is prepared at several points during the ritual. The utensils used – the coffee pot, the incense burner and the cup rack – are considered to be vectors of spiritual power, or “baraka”. This flow of benefits is expressed at the moment the coffee is served, through words of blessing pronounced by the leader of the ceremony. These genuinely poetic improvisations permeate the coffee and are absorbed by each of the participants, strengthening the bonds of brotherhood and friendship that bring them together.

Such ritual codifications of coffee date back to the 15^th century, when this product of the mountain forests of southern Ethiopia was discovered and popularized in Yemen. The stimulant was first adopted by members of the mystical path of the Shadhiliyya, initially established in Tunisia and then in Egypt in the 13^th century. 

They began to promote the use of this new product, seeing it as a valuable adjunct to their spiritual exercises. However, there was considerable controversy in the first decades of the spread of coffee consumption in Arabia, and later in Egypt, Türkiye and throughout the Ottoman empire. Some legal experts considered that the excitement provided by qahwa was similar in nature to the intoxication produced by wine, which was prohibited in Islam.

The authorities were also wary of gatherings around coffee, which were places of free speech. However, the well-being provided by this beverage, particularly its role in sharpening the mind, made its success irresistible, overcoming these conservative reactions. It was received with similar enthusiasm in Europe, spreading from the 17^th century onwards and playing an essential part in the development of modernity.

These stages in the history of the origins of coffee can be found in a well-known legend. At nightfall, a shepherd becomes concerned when his herd of goats (or camels, depending on the version) appears unusually excited. He tells the local religious leader about his problem, who investigates and identifies a shrub with red berries as the cause of the agitation. He tests the effects on himself by extracting the plant's active ingredient by decoction. Spurred on by this discovery, he encourages his fellow monks to do the same, praying fervently into the dead of night.

Since the publication in 1671 of the first treatise on coffee in Europe by Faustus Nairon, a scholar graduated from the Maronite College in Rome, this story linking coffee with happy goats has been taken up and adapted in many forms, becoming the logo of several independent roasters around the world. The popular dimension of this beverage, its underlying religious codifications and the scholarly activities it encourages can all be read into the story.