Ethiopia

Standfirst

A country with one of the oldest coffee cultures in the world, a spice blend (berbere) built up over centuries, and a shared platter of injera that turns every meal into a small ceremony.

Chapter One

One platter, many spoons

An Ethiopian meal begins with a wide round of injera — sour, spongy, fermented flatbread — spread out like a tablecloth. On top come small mounds of stews and salads: doro wat perfumed with berbere and slow-cooked chicken, misir wat of red lentils, gomen greens, and a scoop of ayib fresh cheese to cool everything down.

You eat with your hands, tearing a piece of injera, wrapping it around a bite, and reaching across the platter towards someone else's mound. The whole ritual is generous, unhurried, and quietly intimate.

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In Ethiopia, coffee is not a drink you order — it is a ceremony you sit through, in the best possible sense.

Chapter Two

The long coffee ceremony

Green beans washed, roasted over coals, ground by hand, brewed in a clay jebena. Poured three times — abol, tona, baraka — into small handleless cups, with a plate of popcorn on the side. The Ethiopia collection lives inside that ritual.