Dear Ethiopia, Thanks a Latte

No trip to Ethiopia is complete without imbibing some strong home brew of Abyssinian coffee. 

Julienne, certifiably allergic to any hot beverage, managed to take one eye-crossing swig; and Sara, thrilled to have a break from omnipresent West African Nescafe, is still buzzing from last week’s macchiato.  One lump or two, there is no denying the cultural, economic, and social importance of the tiny bean in Ethiopia. 

Most people can’t formulate complex sentences before their first morning cup of coffee.  After six weeks of drinking strong Ethiopian blends, we still can’t wrap our heads around the complexities of the coffee industry here or abroad.  Here’s a small primer of what we’ve learned (consider it a tiny dollop of froth on a really big latte).

The History

According to legend, an Ethiopian goatherd stumbled upon the miracle effects of coffee when adventuresome members of his flock nibbled the berries of the coffee plant.  The goatherd told his wife of the energizing effect on his goats, and she in turn, insisted he tell the local monks.  Aghast, the monks ditched the sinful drug into the fire, spurring the awesome smell of roasting beans, which drew other monks over to get in on the party.  They pulled the beans back out of the fire, ground them, brewed them, and after a few cups, they found a new way to stay up all night for their holy devotions.   The coffee strain grown today in Ethiopia is same Arabica bean discovered by Kaldi and his goats, and there’s even a local café chain named after the famous goatherd. 

The Bean

Coffee berries are beautiful.  They start out a waxy smooth green and turn into a shiny bright red fruit, giving it its name “cherry.”  Cultivated coffee grows mostly in the southern half of Ethiopia on tall woody bushes, but it is also found throughout the country in its wild woodland form.  While we’re not sophisticated enough to taste the differences of acidity and body, apparently local conditions create different flavors of Arabica from region to region.  While coffee is grown in many tropical countries  – Columbia, Brazil, Vietnam – only coffee grown at an elevation of 1,200 meters can be considered specialty.  With mountainous hillsides, Ethiopia produces tons of premium, delicious, holy devotion-worthy coffee each year. 

The Grind

For better or worse, coffee production in Ethiopia happens the same way that it did in the 10^th century – by hand.  After fertilizing the land and growing berries through the rainy season, farmers harvest the ripe cherries in February. We were on a small peninsula on Lake Tana in the north, as we walked through a wooded forest to come to three local coffee growers picking their crop.  We jumped in to “help.” Like a two-legged goat, Sara ate a coffee cherry, only to find that the inner bean is a crunchy, tasteless nugget, coated in slime.

After picking, these berries are taken to a local “wet mill” where women will wait in line for up to 4 hours for the berries to be husked and washed, and then taken home to be dried in the sun.  These dried green beans are then sold in local markets or to buyers around the world.  Tonight in an elevator, we talked with a coffee importer who was here to taste this year’s crops for his Korean company’s order.

From growing, harvesting and washing, the coffee industry employs millions in full-time work, and up to 12 million Ethiopians in seasonal work (minus curious tourists).  

The Economics

Until last year, when eclipsed by Ethiopian Airlines, coffee revenue was the largest portion of the Ethiopian economy. Here are the beans behind the beans:

·         Coffee is the second most traded product in the world-behind in value only to oil;

·         Large-scale coffee importers and roasters purchase coffee futures through the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange in New York City (originally the NY Coffee Exchange in the 1880s);

·         Ethiopia is the world’s 7^th largest producer of coffee, and Africa’s first;

·         In 2008, Ethiopia coffee exports tallied $357M; in 2011, exports grew to a staggering $840M; 

·         More than half of Ethiopia’s coffee production is exported;

·         About 1 million households (at least 7 million Ethiopians) are dependent on coffee revenue;

·         Growers sell the green beans at a meager $.70 per pound;

·         Yesterday, we purchased 1 pound of coffee from the local food stand for $3.50.

Julienne trying her hand at roasting beans.

The Coffee Crisis

In 2001, coffee prices had fallen to their lowest levels ever, totaling less than one third of their 1960 prices. This sparked a global coffee crisis, impacting more than 25 million households worldwide. Several factors can be blamed for the decline in coffee prices: the dismantling of the International Coffee Agreements' price regulation, a fluctuating market, the exploitation of market power by roasters and retailers, rapid supplier growth with not enough demand and policies implemented by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

When coffee prices fall, the “little guys” suffer. The small-scale family farmers, who produce 75% of the world's coffee supply, lose out, especially when the industry’s pricing and futures are decided in conference rooms and on stock exchange floors a world away from the mountainous coffee farms in the tropics.

The Good Guys

For over 200 years, coffee growers in the developing world have struggled to make proportional financial gains vis-à-vis the big, multi-national conglomerates that have profited prolifically from the growing global market. However, over the years a handful of cooperatives, NGOs, journalists, marketers, Fair Trade advocates and other allies have helped the coffee grower get a bigger sip from the global coffee cup.

Credit: Technoserve, Ethiopia

Founded in 1968 by a successful business man, Technoserve emerged as a pioneering international NGO determined to use business to end poverty. Now operating in almost 50 countries around the world, Technoserve helps entrepreneurial men and women build businesses and capitalize on economic opportunities that create jobs and income for poor people.  Through its $47 million coffee initiative, Technoserve is working with growers across East Africa to improve coffee quality and yield through access to soil nutrients, improve farmer revenue through processing jobs and brokering relationships with buyers, provide millions of dollars of capital for processing stations, and offer professional develop through farm-side taste test “cupping labs” to taste the most sought-after attributes. Technoserve estimates that this support could add an additional $2 billion per year in additional revenue.

But Technoserve isn’t the only organization doing incredible work. A friend from Peace Coffee in Minneapolis put us in touch with a local coffee farmer union, representing more than 200 co-operatives and 200,000 coffee growers and processors.  The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union provides its members with capital, training, and export options that have significantly increased the revenue coming back to these farmers.  OCFCU helps members wash and roast their own beans, creating more coffee-related local jobs and increased revenue for Ethiopians.  The Oromia union returns 70% of its gross profits to its cooperatives.

The Brew

At the end of the day, all this gets distilled down into one cup of joe.  Or, if you’re at an Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony – three cups of joe.  This extended coffee break is a three-cup brew ritual that started as offering of friendship and serves a cornerstone of the social scene – creating time for communities to discuss local issues (and local gossip) as the slow process of roasting, grinding, and drinking unfolds.   

This local ceremony, which used to occur three times per day, has been curbed due to the increasing price of coffee. Now, once a day at most or for some only on special occasion, the coffee ceremony is usually led by a young woman, dressed in a traditional white dress seated on the ground behind rows of tiny coffee cups, and surrounded by fresh cut grass, snacks of bread and popcorn, and a cloud of incense.  

She roasts the green beans in a little cast-iron skillet and offers a waft of roasting smoke to everyone around.  When the beans are toasted and oily, they are ground and poured into a black clay coffee pot.  After a few minutes, the grounds settle and pouring begins from a height of a foot into the tiniest of cups. 

For Ethiopians in city cafes or countryside plantations, it seems the growing, picking, brewing, drinking and sharing is as important to daily life as religion.  For us, we found that the best part of waking up is Ethiopian Fair Trade in our cup.