Cultured Kitchen: Keeping warm with Ethiopian coffee
African coffee caught America’s interest with the 1990’s coffeehouse renaissance, and it’s an easy sell in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in the wet and chilly fall and winter months. Tanzania peaberry (a naturally mutated coffee bean without two halves) was the first to hit shelves, soon followed by Ethiopian “green beans.”
Ethiopian raw coffee with its green shade is roasted at home and in coffee ceremonies where the host roasts the green beans on the stove top until toasted, adds spices in the grinding step and boils in a vessel called a jebena before straining through a sieve several times.
Coffee is then poured into handleless cups. Honored guests add sugar, salt or traditional butter called niter kibbeh. The coffee is brewed three times and additions to the ceremony may include incense and snacks like popcorn, peanuts and himbasha, a sweet cardamom-flavored bread.
Ethiopian coffee has the same amount of caffeine but a smoother finish. When added to the grind, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom take on a new personality in a smooth, hot cup of joe. Here’s how to do it:
Ethiopean (Eretrian) Coffee
Ingredients:
2 cups green unroasted coffee beans
A pinch of spice mixture (cloves, cinnamon bark, cardamom)
Preparation:
1. Wash the coffee beans in cool water to remove any sheaths or oddities.
2. Pour off extra water and roast the beans in a pan over medium high heat until dark brown, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon or shaking the pan from time to time. This will take about 20 minutes depending on heat.
3. Let the beans cool for ten minutes, then add them to your coffee grinder.
4. Add just one or two bits of clove, cinnamon bark and cardamom for each grinder full of coffee.
5. Grind the coffee until it is a fine grain.
6. Brew according to your favorite method.
Interested in trying a Eretrian coffee ceremony? Incense, the jebena, its straw cover, cups strainers, spices and breads can be sourced locally at Merkato.
