Visiting Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee

Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee – although some say the plant appeared in what is now southern Sudan, flourished when it spread to Ethiopia, and was first grown as a crop in Yemen.

The irony is that while Ethiopian coffee is highly prized, it is also tricky for coffee buyers who care about origin and transparency.

For a start, the country is home to many different varieties of Coffea arabica. "I reckon there are hundreds cultivated," says Seven Seeds roaster Aaron Wood. "Most are unclassified. They don't have a name, and are usually just labelled 'heirloom', though the Jimma Agricultural Research Centre has classified about a dozen, which they supply to farmers."

Wood and his co-roaster Matt Ledingham have both travelled to Ethiopia on coffee-buying expeditions. Ledingham was there late last year, and is returning this month.

He travelled to Welega in the west, near the border of South Sudan, about two days' journey from Addis Ababa.

"It was about getting out to the co-ops and meeting farmers," says Ledingham.

Most are tiny operations – too small for direct dealing. By some estimates 90 per cent of Ethiopian coffee is either "garden" – small farm – or "forest" grown: harvested more or less in the wild.

Ledingham cites a farm in Welega he visited last year. "Some is cultivated, but most is coffee trees growing wild. It's not like Central America where it's all in neat rows."

To buy coffee, roasters either have to deal with the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, a centralised market set up in 2008 that sorts and grades coffee according to cup scores, guaranteeing payment to farmers and the quality of the coffee to buyers, or deal with a union of farmers' co-ops.

Seven Seeds, for example, sources Ethiopian coffee from three co-ops that process coffee from numerous small farmers: Robot Mata, Lelisa Hara and Shebel Fana. But the contract for the purchase is organised through the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union.

"We sign the contract, the co-op signs the contract, and it has to be signed by the ministers for trade and agriculture," says Wood.

But it's all worth it, he says. "The coffee is amazingly complex. It has so much potential. And there's the romance of it being from the origin."

Adds Ledingham: "It was an intense experience to meet a farmer who has no idea where we came from and say, 'In Melbourne we really enjoy your coffee'."