BeanScene Magazine

The mystery surrounding coffee and its true beginnings is still a source of academic debate. The folklore woven around the discovery of coffee is almost romantic, rich with coincidence, danger, all things illicit, and at times, bordering on the spiritual.

One account tells of a Yemini mystic named Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili travelling through Ethiopia. On his journey he noticed that the birds had an ‘unusual vitality’, and when he tried the berries they were eating, he experienced the same feeling.

Another legend has it that in 850 AD, Kaldi, a goat herder from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia noticed his flock prancing from one shrub of red berries to another. He decided to try them for himself.
His reaction was extreme so he took the berries to a Muslim holy man. Of course, the holy man disapproved of this stimulant and threw the berries into the fire. Soon an amazing smell was carried up on tendrils of smoke. The roasted beans were raked out of the fire, ground up and dissolved in hot water – the world’s first cup of coffee.

There is another theory that many centuries before coffee was actually drunk, monks chewed on the berries to keep them awake during their long, nocturnal devotions. But the most convincing evidence points to wild coffee plants being discovered in the forests of the Kaffa region in the south of Ethiopia, though coffee was also recorded in Harar, further north, from where it spread through the Muslim trade route.

Although its exact birthplace might be in dispute, Ethiopia is the place where the story of coffee began and it is here that I begin my own coffee trails. Yirgacheffe takes its name from the town in the Sidamo region in the Gedeo Zone in the southern region of Ethiopia. The coffee is one of the world’s finest and considered the best in Ethiopia. Not many coffee beans possess such bright floral notes among other ‘out-of-this-world’ nuances in terms of flavour. The Yirgacheffe and Sidamo coffees can display so much more than most. Think strawberry shortcake, vanilla slice sprinkled with chocolate dust and we are heading into the taste territories. These coffees opened my world and still do each year as I anticipate the seasonal rush to bag the best crops.

Before I barely had a chance to check my passport was valid, I found myself in the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, making my way through the bustling city filled with the brilliant colours of the markets. It’s a bewitching mix of Arabic and African cultures. The place hums with activity and noise, with old cars guzzling lead fuel and the tinker of weird and wonderful bus horns. The traffic is lawless, a wild west of automobiles where cars drive in a directionless jam, each driver out for themselves in a standoff, before the clot of cars gets moving again.

Despite the modernity of the buzzing traffic, the wild and wonderful stories of the debauched poet turned coffee and arms trader, Arthur Rimbaud; Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie; and the discovery of the remains of Lucy, the prehistoric link to modern day humans, all echoed around me.

Addis Ababa is a city of contrasts: old and new, modern day mayhem, maintained and neglected, beautiful and not so pretty. The people have a way of moving that is mesmerising. If they aren’t running, they are proudly strolling the piazza or shopping at the largest open-air market in Africa.

Within the labyrinth of alleyways there’s everything you can possibly think of for sale: pegs, frankincense, socks, coffee and qat, a plant that is chewed to give a sense of euphoria and an ‘up’ kind of a high. It is part of the social culture rather than a Western idea of a drug culture.

Garrett and I had been warned not to head into the notorious qat market but we were intrigued, albeit with a touch of trepidation. I should mention that Garrett is a big, strong guy and is the mate you would take with you to the trenches – and there’s nothing like reinforcements to bolster your bravado.

We headed up a steep, narrow street where bright green qat leaves hung in bunches from doors. The cobbled streets were littered with old brown leaves. We did have a chew of qat, well, Garrett chewed the whole leaf and stem, just to get a feel for the local culture. Afterwards, the combination of euphoria and paranoia along with the jetlag from our plane trip made for an interesting experience that I wouldn’t be keen on repeating.

We bought some washed, green coffee beans and bananas in preparation for our trip to Yirgacheffe the following day. Yes, I brought my full brewing coffee kit, grinder and home roaster along for the ride. The reason? Believe it or not, it is really hard to find a good cup of coffee at origin.

Tadesse Meskela, a shining star of the Fairtrade movement and manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmer’s Cooperative Union sent his driver, Alex, to pick us up in the morning. We would follow his travel plan with Alex as our guide. As well as running the union, Tadesse also spends a lot of his time organising coffee tours of the region for commercial buyers and enthusiasts.

Yirgacheffe is about 400 kilometres from Addis Ababa. The drive is a long one and made much longer by Alex, who pulled over every hour or so to sort out his personal dealings, or visit friends. He seemed to have a network of business contacts in every town we passed through. Each time Alex disappeared from the car he was away for longer than before. My patience was fraying and I felt a little like Bart Simpson, continuously asking, ‘Are we there yet?’

The landscape is flat, the road is flat, flatness stretches out forever and beyond. The only change in the landscape was colour, with brown moving to a light ochre, then opening up to a palette of red and green. The verdant hills are held up by the rich, red topsoil, all set off by a backdrop of  impossibly blue sky.

People are always on the move, carrying loads on their heads or shoulders, kids in hand, in front of thatched houses, smoke billowing from fireplaces. Trucks carrying coffee and people headed back to the coffee milling station in Addis Ababa form a regular stream of traffic.

And still the sound of the tyres bumped relentlessly along, and the road went on and on. Alex must have figured out he’d pushed his stop-start driving to the limit because he agreed to cancel his final meeting, which meant we arrived in Yirgacheffe at the hint of dusk. I pulled at the door handle and jumped out fast while Alex took a lifetime to park.

We dumped our bags and headed down to the main street of the smallish country town with a population of around 12,000. A group of curious kids kept us company, asking questions and answering ours. They’re proud that their town produces the best coffee in the world, and were keen to tell us so.

About a kilometre down the road we realised we had attracted quite a crowd. It felt like a pilgrimage out to the processing plant, Quangua. In the evening light, the surrounding forest looked even darker and denser, and the earthy smell was strong, only broken by a whiff of wood smoke from a fireplace.

It was totally surreal and I felt like I was floating as we came closer and closer to the plant that would be dry processing this year’s Yirgacheffe. As the evening closed in, the clouds descended and within seconds the rain pelted down. To escape it, we rushed into the nearest bus shelter only to find that it was someone’s living room. It was an awkward moment as pairs of eyes stared at us unblinkingly and we tried to apologise for our unexpected visit.

We arrived at the coffee cooperative washhouse as the light was fading. The coffee  sorting continues with an eagerness to get through as many beans as possible before complete darkness falls. The coffee season is limited, which means the more beans that come in and out of the stations, the bigger the potential income. Eventually though, work had to stop, and they gave in to the natural cycle of the day.

The following day we headed out to a meeting with the Oromia Coffee Farmer’s  Cooperative Union. Established in June 1999, the union represents about 100,000 coffee growers, processors, and exporters of the Oromia Region of southern and western Ethiopia, with members organised into 35 cooperatives.

The co-op exports well-known Ethiopian wet processed coffees such as Limu, Sidamo, Lekempti and Yirgacheffe. Classic flavour profiles span from mid-toned fruit and chocolate to high pitched floral and citrus notes. The dry processed Jimma and Harars have rich cocoa and spice characteristics and a heavy, creamy body. A dry processed Yirgacheffe can deliver some startling strawberry and vanilla cream notes.

A huge 65 per cent of Ethiopia’s coffee comes from this region, and we met with some of the smaller cooperatives in the Gedeo and Sidamo areas. Profits from their sales and exports are distributed among the member farmers for building, investment in education, health, water and electricity infrastructure. The Negelle Gorgitu Cooperative showed us the Efersa Waro school, a project established through Fairtrade. We also saw the Homa Bukisu School and talked to the village leader, Hayira Mariam Guyve. He was an impressive figure, draped in a cream-coloured gown, set off with an ornate carved stick that proudly bears the village emblem.

Finally, we trekked into the forest, excited to see our first coffee trees. Sadly, at first glance the plants didn’t quite live up to the legend. They looked small and unremarkable under the massive forest canopy. Garrett was clearly disappointed. ‘Is this it?’ he said, pointing towards the spindly and bare plant, and adding that it wasn’t going to make a great photo. I explained the post-harvest tree had put all its resources into producing the luscious fruit, and assured him we would find some impressive trees – soon.

It was amazing to see the sustainable growing conditions. There is nothing quite like forest-grown coffee sitting in its natural habitat, with the birds, bugs and bees, all cohabiting sustainably. Once the plant is in flower, the air fills with wonderful pungent smells that echo in a cup.

Toby Smith’s book Coffee trails is available for purchase from www.tobysestate.com.au