Morning Starts With Green Beans

Green beans, not the veggie, rather, the raw coffee bean. 

Imabet is a willing cultural teacher and she agreed to teach Aubrey the art of the Ethiopian coffee process.

This pan with a slightly curved edge is chiefly important to the whole process.

Behind the black pan is a clay, black pot called a “jebena”, which is specific for making coffee.

A three-stone fire is used in our area. The dirty beans are put over the fire with a splash of water to heat the water. Then, the coffee maker removes it from the fire (with bare hands).

From there, the process is soak the green beans in water and grind them together between the palms of your hands. This frees the husks. Rinse and repeat, 3-5 times…

I love this picture of Miss T, she is just asking, “How can I get involved in this fun process?!?” Of course, she digs in. If it has water, you can’t keep her away.

After the beans are clean, the tray goes back over the fire and the beans are moved continually. Picture this like a popcorn popper, moving the kernels the whole time. 

It cannot happen to quickly or you have burned beans and other still green

And when the smell is incredible and the coffee beans are a brown color, pull them off.

Time to pour them into the mortar and pestle. Ethiopian coffee is very fine ground and most times, by hand.

While the coffee is being ground, the jebena goes into the fire so the water can boil.

Of course, not ones to miss out, Tiger and Miss T joined in.

The ground coffee is slowly added into the boiling water. Friends claim they can tell by taste whether the coffee was boiled in a  jebena or if it had time to boil in the hot water.

The jebena is then removed from the fire and slanted at an angle. The grounds settle for a few minutes and then the coffee or buna is poured into tiny cups or sinis. The coffee is strong-compared to an American espresso-and each person is served three rounds of coffee.

Kids are routinely served coffee here. We limit J and A to a cup and usually none for the toddlers but when someone helps make the coffee, She’s allowed to enjoy a sip.

Both of our littles love coffee. Tiger was playing outside by the time coffee was served. 

Here’s a picture from the day before. Tiger had taken over his sister’s hat and the coffee-servers stool.

 

And then the next day, the process starts again. It’s as far away from a keurig as imaginable. 

 When we tell friends we buy pre-ground coffee and prepare it in a french press, we may as well be aliens. ;)

 

In other news, we travel to Addis on Sunday. We have a break between meetings in the South and so on Wednesday-Friday, our family goes North (straight North, we live Northwest) to meet J and A’s birth father and birth siblings again! It has been four years and we would appreciate prayers.