A trip to Ethiopian coffee nirvana

After a largely unsuccessful day of attempted travel; I learnt my lesson that in Ethiopia buses go early in the morning, or not at all, I returned to the small town of Yabelo late in the afternoon, and thought I should treat myself. After asking around I found a place that served up macchiatos; almost everywhere in Ethiopia serves good percolated coffee, but the really good places also dish out macchiatos for ten cents, so good that they would make Italian coffee buffs green with envy.

The café was set back off the street, with a tree shaded courtyard, and three small rooms behind it. I entered inside to find a middle aged woman with a tray of cups and a jika (a small, portable metal fireplace using charcoal) with a coffee pot on the coals. Sitting next to her was her teenage sun, diligently folding toilet paper in to serviettes. Using my newly acquired Amharic, I asked for and was served my frothing macchiato - a short glass, filled with dark coffee in the bottom half, and a top half of milk wafting about on top of the coffee. Coffee originally comes from Ethiopia, and is treated very seriously, even in the dumpiest dives - this cup was superb - the bitter taste of the strong coffee perfectly balanced with the sweetness of a teaspoon or two of sugar and the smoothness of the milk.

Only when I finished the macchiato did things begin to get serious, and the coffee ritual kicked things up a few notches. Mama, the coffee master, had added a series of teaspoons of finely ground coffee and water to the pot and set it on the coals to simmer. Everything was done in a slow and deliberative way, Mama probably having done in thousands of times before. It was late in the afternoon and the dim and dusty room was only lit by a few bright rays of soft golden sunshine streaming in through the doorway; when Mama threw a handful of itan (scented bark) on the fire the room filled with thick, delicious sweet and spicy smelling smoke, drifting across the room, the sunlight reflecting of it. The earthenware pot on the fire was black and shaped like a gourd - bulbous at the bottom, a small, thin spout jutting out at a 45 degree angle, a curving handle joining the bottom and the long, narrow neck, with a thin red cork capping the top.

Whilst the room filled with smoke, and the pot boiled away Mama busied herself preparing the cups, six small squat white porcelain cups that sat in two rows of three on a small serving stand. She poured water in to one, and then from each cup in to the next until the last cup from which the water was tipped out in to a waiting container. She repeated this a few times until she was satisfied that the water coming out of the final cup was clean enough. I was joined by a couple of local guys, one in a hat with the Ethiopian colours in a band, and another older guy carrying some mops and brooms - attracted no doubt by the scent of coffee and itan.

Mama had removed the cork from the pot a few times, and swished the liquid inside about a bit. Once she had cleaned the cups, the pot seemed to have boiled long enough and she removed it and sat it on a large crocheted ring that was sitting next to the cups stand. A younger guy appeared from out of the kitchen with a stand shaped like a large wine glass containing glowing red coals, on to which Mama through some more itan, and the room again filled with smoke. Whilst she was waiting for the coffee to cool, she placed a teaspoon of sugar in to each cup. The pouring part required first a splash of coffee between the cups on the serving board and then Mama poured the thick, black liquid in to each of the cups. The young guy appeared again from the kitchen with a small saucer to put the cup on, and a teaspoon, and then served my the coffee.

With all of the room looking at me as a took my first sip, and the taste was incredible, a thick, smooth taste, layered with alternating bitterness and sweetness from the coffee and sugar. The burnt taste of roasted coffee mixed with the spicy, ginger like taste of the itan. There was literally a party in my mouth and all my taste buds had been invited - and shown up in their Sunday best; the ceremonyalising of the whole process seemed to add that extra layer of delight that was hard to suppress. Four years after discovering the joy of Ethiopian coffee, I had finally reached my coffee heaven. I savoured the moment for a while, etching the taste and the surroundings - particularly the light and the smell, in to my unreliable memory - hoping that one day the mere waft of ground roasted coffee beans would take me back to my Ethiopian coffee nirvana.

And the cost of the fare to get there - a whopping two and a half Bir - twenty five cents !

Post script:
To round out the day, I later returned to the café for dinner and was served an incredibly tasty dish that goes by the name of atkilt - a plate consisting of a mix of spicy beetroot salad, grated carrot salad, steamed veggies, a pesto like sauce made from greens, a biting tomato salad, surrounding a fluffy grain with the consistency of couscous, served with njera, Ethiopian thin, fluffy savoury pancakes and
accompanied with a sugo - a dark, thick, smoky chilli sauce, that set the whole meal on fire.

One day in and I am starting to wonder will I ever leave Ethiopia ?