Note sull'episodio
In Ethiopia and Eritrea, coffee can take two hours and you cannot opt out: decline the coffee and you will likely be handed tea and still be expected to stay. The host, usually the matriarch, first transforms the room by scattering freshly cut grass and flowers across the floor, and around the Meskel holiday in late September those flowers are the yellow Adey Abeba daisies that bloom at the end of the rainy season. Green beans are washed and roasted in a flat pan over a charcoal brazier, and the host carries the smoking pan around the room so guests can breathe in the aroma.
The roasted beans are pounded by hand in a wooden mortar called a mukecha, whose thumping works as a signal to the neighbors, and the uneven grind gives the brew its heavy body. The coffee boils in the round bottomed jebena, is poured from about a foot high in one unbroken stream into small handleless cups, and is brewed from the same grounds three times. Frankincense or myrrh smolders throughout, and in the countryside guests often season their cups with salt or spiced clarified butter instead of sugar.
- The three rounds are called abol, tona, and baraka in Amharic, and baraka means blessing.
- The same rounds are known as awel, kalei, and baraka in Tigrinya.
- Pouring from height cools the coffee enough for handleless china, and never lifting the pot keeps the settled grounds undisturbed.
- Salt blocks bitterness receptors on the tongue, and butter coats the palate with a velvety texture.
- Snacks are often popcorn or roasted peanuts, or himbasha, a mildly sweet bread spiced with cardamom.