Information On The Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
Author: Factsoncoffee.com

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is very important in the
Ethiopian culture. The coffee ceremony will be performed when
friends visit, during celebrations, or simply as a part of the
daily routine. It is so important to how the Ethiopians view
coffee that most Ethiopian restaurants will have the coffee
ceremony performed for you at your table.

The Ethiopian coffee ritual takes the participants through the
entire coffee preparation process. Whether you are witnessing
the ritual in a restaurant or lucky enough to participate in
someone's home, the green coffee beans will be brought to your
table by a woman. She will wash the beans, and then start a fire
in a small open roasting furnace.

The washed beans will be put into a small pan with a long
handle and held over the fire. The woman preparing the beans
will shake the pan back and forth, like an old-fashioned popcorn
maker. This keeps the bean from burning. Some people have
described the sound of the shaking beans as similar to shaking
coins in a tin can. Once the beans are roasted, the preparer
takes the pan and walks around the room, filling the room with
the enticing aroma of freshly roasted coffee. Experiencing the
sounds and smells is an important part of the ritual.

The next step in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony is to grind the
freshly roasted beans. In restaurants, they may use an electric
grinder to speed up the process. Traditionally, the beans will
be ground in a small tool called a mukecha (pronounced
moo-key-cha). The mukecha is a very heavy wooden bowl. The beans
are poured inside, and then crushed with a zenezena, which is a
wooden or metal stick that is used in an up and down motion,
rather like a mortar and pestle.

The ground coffee is then put into a traditional clay pot
called a jebena (pronounced jay-ben-ah). Water is added, and
then the pot is put over heat until the coffee boils. The scent
of the boiling coffee again fills the room, tempting the senses
of all the participants of the ritual.

Coffee prepared in the Ethiopian coffee ritual is then served
in small ceramic cups resembling the small cups you see in
Chinese restaurants for tea. The cups are arranged on a tray
very close together, and the coffee is poured from one cup to
another in a single pour from the pot. This is a very important
step, even if some sloshes onto the tray. If the server poured
each cup individually, the coffee grounds would get mixed up
with the liquid, resulting in gritty coffee. With the single
pour method, the coffee remains free of the sediment.

Once you've taken your first sip, you've witnessed the full
life-cycle of making coffee, from washing the raw beans, through
roasting, grinding, and boiling the coffee. If you're in a
restaurant, the ceremony usually ends here. Traditionally,
second and third servings are often prepared as well. Each
serving has its own name: the first serving is called Abol, the
second serving is called Huletegna, and the third serving is
called Bereka. Once you've reached this stage, you have
completed the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.


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