Photo by Jenny Holm
If you walked by the corner of 13th Street and Otis Place NW in Columbia Heights this Sunday afternoon, you might have noticed an unusual sight. An elderly woman in a white cotton dress sat on an upturned milk crate in front of the convenience store, shaking a pan full of coffee beans over a small fire. The slightly burnt aroma of the beans mixed with the woodsy scent of frankincense, smoking in an incense burner next to her. A small group gathered around her, watching the beans turn from light green to glossy black.
In Ethiopia, this would not have raised any eyebrows. It’s a coffee ceremony, as common as a trip to Starbucks is in D.C. There, roasting coffee is a skill that’s handed down from mother to daughter. Women might make coffee three times a day for relatives or neighbors who stop by.
“In Ethiopia we say that if you have somewhere to be, don’t accept coffee from someone,” says Nani Girma, who owns 13th Street Market where the ceremony on Saturday was held (1300 Otis Place NW). “You are going to be sitting for a couple of hours.”
The raw, greenish beans are roasted in a pan over a propane flame until they take on a deep burnish, then ground by hand and steeped directly in boiling water inside a clay pot to create a strong, black brew. The host pours the coffee into small, handleless cups arranged on a tray and hands them out to her guests, who add sugar to their taste.
Incense may be burned as the coffee beans are roasting. Frankincense is common: a tree resin that has long been used throughout the Horn of Africa (among other places) for medicinal purposes, people burn it to bring good health to those who breathe in its smoke. If you’ve spent time in Catholic or Orthodox churches, you might recognize its scent as that which wafts from the censers swung by priests to purify the air.
Girma tells me that back home, coffee is important not just because it’s tasty or because it lifts your energy, but because the ritual around it plays a social purpose.
“In the villages especially, the women typically don’t work [outside the home], so coffee is the time they have to sit around and talk about their husbands behind their backs, talk about politics,” she says. “It’s like our CNN.”
The origins of coffee as we know it today are disputed; however, some say that the coffee plant was first domesticated in Harar, a region of eastern Ethiopia. Its beans were later exported over the Mandab Strait to Yemen, from where coffee drinking spread throughout the Middle East and, eventually, to the rest of the world.
Yirgacheffe may be the best known Ethiopian coffee in the US. It is bright and highly acidic: it’s likely to curdle your cream if you try to add any, so enjoy it black instead. Harar beans are typically roasted dark to bring out their smoky, toasted flavor notes. I liked the medium-roast Sidamo best, with its balanced acidity and slightly sweet flavor.
You can find all three types in various roasts at Harrar Coffee and Roastery (2904 Georgia Avenue NW). They roast their own beans on-site and host a free coffee ceremony every Saturday at 2 p.m. Sidamo Coffee and Tea (417 H Street NE) also roasts their organic, fair-trade, shade-grown beans right in the shop and hosts a weekly ceremony at 2 p.m. on Sundays. Girma will begin serving brewed Ethiopian coffee later this summer and plans to organize another coffee ceremony outside her shop in late August.
