Ethiopia's Coffee Ceremony - "Ja jebena bunna"

For a long time after this extraordinary fruit had been discovered the Ethiopians ate it whole, chopped or mixed with boiled butter. Then, around the XIII century, the habit of drying coffee cherries, grinding them and making a hot beverage with them was spread. Even since then Ethiopia's coffee ceremony has remained the same and, when an Ethiopian family welcomes someone in their home, they perform the same ritual in the same way their ancestors did centuries ago.

After the meal one of the women leaves the table and spreads goosgwaze (a kind of grass which is believed to bring good luck) and sometimes some flowers on the floor to perfume every corner of the house and evoke their relationship with nature. Then she seats on a stool in a corner next to a brazier and lights some incense which represents union with God and helps to crate a particular atmosphere. Sometimes the woman also prepares something to eat such as pop corn (which is also scattered on the floor to chase away bad spirits), kolo (toasted cereals and nuts with a particular mixture of spices called berberè) or dabo kolo (pieces of sweet fried bread) and, depending on the religion of the family, coffee can be tasted with local butter or a pinch of salt. Afterwards she washes the coffee beans and roasts them in a pan; once they are properly roasted, she carries the pan to the table and gently shakes it in front of each person, so the aroma of the coffee wafts towards them and they can smell it. Then she heads to the kitchen, which is often outside the house, and grinds the beans in a mortar called mukecha. After a while she goes back into the house with the jebenà, the typical Ethiopian clay jug (similar to a teapot), puts it on the embers to heat the water inside it and then adds the ground coffee and waits until the water boils. Once boiled, she pours the coffee into cups without a handle (sini) and after adding sugar serves it always starting from the eldest person present. 

As coffee looses a bit of its "strength" after each round, in Ethiopia it is said that the first round of coffee, the strongest one, is for fathers, the second for mothers and the third, the weakest, is for children.