Ethiopia, officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over 91,000,000 inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populated nation on the African continent.
Coffee production in Ethiopia is a longstanding tradition. Ethiopia is the place where Coffea arabica, originates. The coffee plant is now grown in various parts of the world, including other African countries and South America. Ethiopia accounts for around 3% of the International coffee market and coffee is an important part of the Ethiopian economy. Approximately 60% of export income comes from coffee, and about 15 million of the population rely on coffee production for their livelihood.
Today Ethiopia coffees are among the world’s most varied and distinctive, and at least one, Yirgacheffe, ranks among the very finest.
All Ethiopian coffees display the wine and fruit toned acidity characteristic of Africa and Arabia coffees. Ethiopian beans, however, play a rich range of variations on this theme. These variations are in part determined by processing method. Ethiopia coffees neatly divide into those processed by the dry method (the beans are dried inside the fruit) and those processed by sophisticated, large-scale wet method, in which the fruit is immediately removed from the beans in a series of complex operations before the beans are dried.