The Beauty of the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony

Coffee to Ethiopians is like tea to the British or the Japanese who have an elaborate tradition known as the tea ceremony. Ethiopians, too, have a very beautiful traditional coffee ceremony, although it is not as much written about as the Japanese tea ceremony.
It is unimaginable for most Ethiopians, both in towns and in the rural areas, to start a new day without several cups of coffee. In the morning they take coffee with snacks and may be repeated several times during the day as the occasion requires.
Ethiopians do not only indulge in daily coffee ceremonies all by themselves or with their neighbors. Coffee is the best drink an Ethiopian family offers to honor guests, as the coffee ceremony is the best occasion for a get together with neighbors and friends to exchange notes or discuss what is going on in the immediate neighborhood or in the country at large.

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony might have been created with the discovery of coffee itself in its south-western heartland, in a particular place called Kaffa from which, many experts of the uniquely fragrant and relaxing bean believe, the term coffee has originated and joined the international lexicon. Coffee, café,… etc.

What is interesting about the coffee ceremony in Ethiopia is the fact that the main utensils used for preparing coffee are mostly traditional or hand-made like the clay kettle (the jebena), the coffee pounding apparatus (or the mukecha). It is unimaginable to boil coffee in an aluminum kettle. It simply spoils the natural taste of the bean and all Ethiopian women have these utensils ready for daily use, however, well off, educated or modern they might be.

In the old days, the bean was roasted on a flat clay utensil known as mitad but nowadays a small, flat and circular dish is used for roasting coffee which is washed several times by hand before it is roasted.

Then the black or brownish beans are pounded in a wooden mukecha until they are reduced into powder. Ethiopians do not want to use electrical coffee grinders even if they have the means to buy them, because they fear the modern machine might spoil the taste of the coffee.

The little corner in the house where the coffee ceremony takes place is cleaned and sprinkled with freshly cut grass before the utensils are brought in. The fresh grass has some symbolic significance as it may be interpreted as the harbinger of good omen or simply an eye-catching backdrop to the ceremony

Besides, they seem to enjoy hearing the pounding of the coffee so that they can fully enjoy drinking it afterwards. There must be something invigorating with the pounding of coffee, a kind of sensory stimuli that would make coffee drinking a very enjoyable experience.

The coffee is usually served on a wooden or aluminum tray, together with a dozen or more small white ceramic cups, in which the steaming coffee is poured before it is served to guests. Incense burning is an inseparable part of the coffee ceremony.

The woman who prepares the coffee has particular fondness with the cups, that are usually small, round and of different colors. This is similar to the Japanese tradition where tea cups are an integral part of the ceremony of which the tea master and the guests are very proud of them and keeps them with particular care. The cups are ceramic art works, more elaborate than the simple cups of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.
As soon as the kettle with the boiling coffee leaves the fire, the woman hastens to burn incense on a small piece of clay and places it near the door. The smoke then gushes out of the door and the woman who takes care of the ceremony whispers a few words of thanks to the good spirit of the house (known as the ad bar) and says prayers wishing the day to be a peaceful and enjoyable one, for the sick to get well, the poor to get wealth or jobs. Coffee in Ethiopia has also a spiritual dimension as it is often used as a means of communicating with the good spirit of the house or the village.

Unlike the Japanese tea ceremony that can be prepared by a woman or a man, it is taboo in Ethiopia for men to boil coffee.

The snack is brought to the guests before the coffee is served. This is for instance like the tea master serving sweets to the guests during the Japanese tea ceremony but in case of the coffee ceremony the snack may be roasted grain, bread or a piece of injera (a round pancake made of a special Ethiopian grain grass known as teff).
The woman who boils the coffee then pours a few drops in each cup and throws the content on the floor as a service to the spirit of the house which is believed to be present in the house every time coffee is served. It is traditionally believed that the Ethiopian coffee ceremony takes place as a ritual in the service to the good spirit of the house.

What makes the Ethiopian coffee ceremony quite unique and interesting is that is served three times (called abol, tona and bereka) in a row by adding water to the kettle and boiling and serving it three times over with the only result that the coffee becomes thinner and whiter after each round of boiling. Guests are expected to stay in the same place until the coffee ceremony lasts and it is impolite to walk out in the middle of a ceremony.

While the Japanese tea ceremony might take sometimes half a day with food served in between, the Ethiopia coffee ceremony lasts only an hour and sometimes two hours depending on the occasion.

At the end of the ceremony, all those present and elderly people in particular give the blessing, wishing all the guests good health, wealth and a peaceful time.
At last, all the utensils used during the coffee ceremony are washed and properly arranged and placed until another ceremony takes place. The cups and the cup server are covered with a neat piece of cloth and the whole thing is put in a special place for another occasion.

As the British and the Japanese have been enjoying their tea for centuries so do Ethiopians whose attachment to coffee is a legendary one. Ethiopian folk tales has it that a certain inhabitants of a region somewhere in the north of the country were suddenly attacked by their opponents and their land taken over {maybe during the era of the warlords}, while they were fondly enjoying their coffee which they could not forego even under pressure.

For millions of Ethiopians, coffee is not only an economic pillar but also plays an important role as a safe and enjoyable beverage. There was this myth about coffee being the source of some ill health.
But if we go by the records of the health status of the largest consumers of coffee in Ethiopia, they never experienced health problems as a result of their daily indulgence in the aromatic Coffee Abyssinia that may even have medicinal value.

Recent medical research has revealed that coffee drinking might be behind the relatively fewer incidence of stomach cancer in communities with high levels of coffee consumption.

The stimulating effects of coffee is a well-documented medical truism that is corroborated by the daily experience of most Ethiopian farmers who do not, as a rule, start the morning work in their farms without drinking a cup of coffee even if they have nothing to eat.

You can have the Ethiopian coffee ceremony re-enacted at many of the big hotels in Addis Ababa where watching the ceremony unfolding might even be a lifetime experience and an opportunity to have a glimpse into an interesting aspect of Ethiopian culture and tradition.

(by Mulugeta Gudeta, Tourist Handbook, Ethiopian Tourist Trading Enterprise)