In Ethiopia, coffee is more than just a simple beverage: it's a traditional ritual, an expression of identity and culture. It's always the women who prepare the coffee, often at the end of the day, and the whole ritual can take around forty minutes in total.
It's a community event, where everyone is invited. Mélanie was lucky enough to attend one on her original trip. As evening fell, the smoke and smell of coffee made the experience quite mystical!
Here are the steps involved in preparing “buna”, Ethiopian-style coffee:
- The woman first prepares a fire with pieces of charcoal, in a metal receptacle. She prepares her little table with numerous tiny cups, scatters sacred herbs on the ground around it and lights incense that will burn throughout the ritual.
- The green (raw) coffee beans are roasted over the fire in a pan for around twenty minutes, stirring the beans constantly.
- The well-cooked beans are transferred to a large mortar, then ground by hand.
- The woman then empties the ground beans into a “jebena” filled with water (a kind of clay kettle), where they are brewed for around ten minutes.
- The brewed coffee, a fairly dark, concentrated liquid, is then poured into multiple small cups for tasting!
Coffee ceremony in Ethiopia
