According to Ethiopian folklore, Coffee was first discovered when Kaldi, a famous goatherder, noticed his goats became filled with energy after chewing on red berries in a bush. After tasting the berries himself and becoming flush with excitement, he showed them to a Sufi priest, searching for an explanation. The priest, unable to determine how the beans worked, attributed the effects to sorcery and banned their consumption. He threw them into a large fire, from which a now familiar aroma flowed. Kaldi, still determined to understand how the magical berries worked, gathered the overdone beans and tried chewing them. Turned off by the bitter taste, he tried dissolving them in water heated by a small fire-- brewing the world's first cup of coffee! Although there is evidence that coffee was likely drank before Kaldi's infamous goats tried them, this tale lives on, and Kaldi has become integral to coffee mythology.
Ethiopia, considered by most to be the birthplace of coffee, is where coffea arabica, the coffee plant, originates. The coffee plant primarily grew in the southern province of Kaffa, an area filled with mountains and lush rainforests. The western "coffee" comes from the Arabic qahwah, which roughly translates to "drink derived from berries".
Ethiopian Harrar beans are one of the oldest coffee beans still in production and are considered one of the richest coffees in the world. The Harrar region lies in the Eastern Highlands, where the beans are all harvested and processed by hand. The shells are typically saved and used to make hasher-qahwa (Ethiopian tea). The coffee is known to be extremely bold and full-bodied with a dry fruitiness that is reminiscent of red wine. Many drinkers also describe a notable floral taste with hints of jasmine in the finish. Some also detect hints of blueberries and apricot.
