Coffee grows on trees!

Well, coffee doesn't exactly grow on trees. Coffee berries grow on trees, but there are quite a few steps in the transition from tree to cup.  So, let's start at the beginning: the Coffea arabica tree.  In the Sidama region, folks interplant their coffee trees amongst their shady enset, bananas, beans, etc.  

There are plenty of mature groves like the one we are walking through in the photo, but folks are continually planting new seedlings and removing old trees.  We got to plant some baby coffee trees at Common River, in the hopes that we will return in a few years to enjoy the fruits!  

While we were there in June, the beans were still small and green, and won't be red and ready to pick till September.  They need to be cleaned and then dried in order to be

sold.  This will bring a burst of cash to the families that produce them, if they happen to get a good price the day they haul them to market.  In every town we passed through, we kept noticing mysterious, heavily-fortified empty buildings.  We eventually learned that they are for the coffee harvest!  This cash crop economy with a single annual harvest is a difficult thing to rely on for many families, especially since the harvest coincides with new year's festivities...

Dried coffee beans are stored and then sold year-round in village markets and at shops.  You can purchase them dried and still in their hulls (black round things in the lower left of the photo), or already husked, green beans (upper right).  

Fun factoid: Ethiopia consumes half of the coffee it produces.  That's an awful lot of buna!  The rest is exported and then roasted for lucky people like me.