Legend credits a ninth century goat herder named Kaldi in Ethiopia’s Kaffa region with discovering coffee after his goats ate red berries and began to dance. Ethiopia is the birthplace of Arabica and Africa’s top producer, turning out about 496,200 tons in 2022 and supporting some 5.9 million farmers, with exports near $2.9 billion in the 2024 to 2025 marketing year. Coffee crossed to Yemen around the sixth century, yet Ethiopian Christians avoided it until the 19th century because they saw it as a Muslim drink. Today Ethiopians drink about half of what they grow, and nearly all picking and drying is still done by hand across forest, garden, and plantation coffee.

From 1974 to 1991 a Marxist government forced farmers into collectives and set low prices. The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, launched in 2008, pooled coffee by grade and region, erasing traceability until reforms began in 2017. In 2006 Oxfam accused Starbucks of helping the National Coffee Association block Ethiopia’s US trademarks for Sidamo, Harar, and Yirgacheffe, and the two sides reached an agreement in June 2007. Climate change now threatens a rise of 1.1 to 3.1 degrees Celsius by 2060 and possible yield losses of 70%.

• Ethiopian Arabica is graded as longberry, shortberry, or Mocha, the single seed peaberry.
• High grown Sidamo beans, including Yirgacheffe, mature slowly in cool air and taste of lemon and citrus.
• Harar is dry processed in the whole cherry, and its dried husks are brewed into a traditional tea.
• Oxfam said the lost trademarks could cost farmers up to 47 million pounds a year, and over 92,000 letters were sent to Starbucks.
• Farmers are moving plantings uphill and adding irrigation, shade trees, terracing, and mulch.